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Indiana Historical Collections 

Volume XI 


Biographical Series 

Volume I 


Copyright, 1923 
By 

The Indiana Historical Commission 


INDIANAPOLIS: 

WM. B- RUBFORD- CONTRACTOR FOR STATE PRINTING AND BINDING 

1923 



Indiana Biographical Series 

Volume I 


r 

GEORGE W. JULIAN 

3 By 

crx 

Grace Julian Clarke 


\ 


With an Introduction 
By 

William Dudley Foulke 


> 



Published by the 

Indiana Historical Commission 
Indianapolis 

1923 



ET4IS 

.1 

.OVCs 


INDIANA HISTORICAL COMMISSION 

Gov. Warren T. McCray, President 
Samuel M. Foster, Vice-President 
Harlow Lindley, Secretary 

James A. Woodburn 
Charles W. Moores 
Lew M. O’Bannon 

Matthew J. Walsh 

Mrs. John N. Carey 

Kate Milner Rabb 

John W. Oliver, Ph. D., Director 
Lucy M. Elliott, Assistant Director 



C1A7G0705 


( 4 ) 

m ? 1923 . 




“For this was all thy care— 

To stand approved in sight of God, though worlds 
Judged thee perverse.” 

John Milton —Paradise Lost, Book VI 


“All honor to Jefferson, to the man who in the 
concrete struggle for national independence by a 
single people had the coolness, forecast and capac¬ 
ity to introduce into a purely revolutionary docu¬ 
ment an abstract truth applicable to all men and 
all times, and so to embalm it there that today 
and in all coming days it shall be a rebuke and 
a stumbling-block to the harbingers of reappear¬ 
ing tyranny and depotism.” 

Abraham Lincoln in letter to Henry L. 

Pierce, April 6, 1859 


(5) 


EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION 


With this volume the Indiana Historical Com¬ 
mission begins a new series of publications: “The 
Biographical Series of Noted Indianans.” Bi¬ 
ographical studies are always interesting, not 
alone because of their human flavor and personal 
appeal, but also because of their special value in 
explaining the causes for pursuing a certain line 
of action. And in a state like Indiana, long 
known as one of the ‘pivotal states’ in national 
political campaigns, and where political leadership 
counts for so much, biographical studies possess 
an interest beyond the ordinary. 

The Indiana Historical Commission is glad to 
begin this new series of publications with the Life 
of George W. Julian, one of our state’s really great 
men, written by his daughter, Grace Julian 
Clarke. A man of Julian’s temperament, high 
ideals, and uncompromising attitude on questions 
of moral righteousness, requires the sympathetic 
pen of one who knew him as only a daughter 
could have known him properly to portray his 
career. However, in preparing this volume Mrs. 
Clarke has not permitted any personal bias or 
family pride to enter into her work. In fact she 
has in certain pages assumed the role of a critic 
in passing judgment upon some of her father’s 
acts. But running through the entire volume is 
found that just and sympathetic interpretation 


(6) 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


7 


which characterizes a successful biographical 
study. 

In preparing this biography Mrs. Clarke had 
access to the invaluable collection of Julian's 
letters, his Unpublished Autobiography, his per¬ 
sonal “Journal”, and a “Scrap-book” of newspaper 
clippings kept by Julian. Also she has drawn 
largely upon his volumes of Speeches on Political 
Questions, Political Recollections, and Later 
Speeches. Mrs. Clarke had the additional advan¬ 
tage of having been the intimate companion and 
secretary of her father during the last years of 
his life. It was during this period, one given over 
largely to sober reflection and reminiscences, that 
Julian gave expression to the views he had enter¬ 
tained on the great issues for which he had battled 
during his long and eventful life. 

John W. Oliver, Director 
Indiana Historical Commission 

State House 
Indianapolis, Ind. 

April, 1923 


CONTENTS 


4 


Page 

Chapter 1. 21 

Ancestry and Early Life. 

Chapter II. 43 

First Flights—Begins Practice of Law— 
Marriage—Elected to Legislature. 

CHAPTER III. 69 

'/feeligious Perplexities —V Politics — Buffalo 
Convention—Campaign of 1848—Persecu¬ 
tion—Dissolution of Law Partnership— 
Letters to Giddings. 

Chapter IV. 85 

Elected to Thirty-first Congress—Washing¬ 
ton in 1850—Social Ostracism of Free 
Soilers—Contest fox Speaker—William J. 
Brown Episode—'rf'he Compromise—First 
Speech in Congress— 1 Letter from Sumner— 
Speech on the ‘Healing Measure’—Visit 
to New England—The Homestead Bill— 
International Peace. 

Chapter V. 117 

Defeated for Re-nomination to Congress— 
Oliver P. Morton—‘Carrying On’—Tem¬ 
perance—Free Soil National Convention, 

1852—Nominated for Vice-President— 
Incidents of the Campaign—“The State of 
Political Parties.” 


(8) 








GEORGE W. JULIAN 


9 


Page 

Chapter VI. 143 

Professional and Home Life—Throat Cut 
in Court—Fugitive/ Slave Cases-^Kansas- 
Nebraska Bill-^fulian Fights It—Cam¬ 
paign of 1854—Opposes Know Nothing 
Movement—Speeches in Cincinnati and 
Indianapolis-vdCetter from Giddings. 

Chapter/ VII . 167 

/Anti-slavery Progress Slow—Pittsburgh 
Convention—Julian’s Political Independ- 
ence-^Friendship of Chase—>-Some Letters— 
Election of Buchanan—The Western Pres¬ 
age —Speech at Raysville. 

Chapter VIII. 189 

Another Fugitive Slave Case—Politics— 
Anti-slavery Missionary Efforts—“Mental 
Faithfulness” — Reading — Rev. Daniel 
Worth—Nominated for Congress 1860— 
Interesting Letters—Death of Anne E. 

J ulian—Spiritualism. 

Chapter IX. y . 210 

Visits Lincoln^ietter from Chase—Office 
Seekers—Inauguratioi^-of Lincoln—Thirty- 
seventh Congress—^Julian’s Radicalism— 
Fremont’s Proclamation August 30, 1861— 
Committee on Conduct of the War— 
Speeches—Letter from Lydia Maria Child. 

Chapter X. 242 

Politics—Second Marriage—Movement to 










10 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Page 

Nominate Chase—Lands of the Rebels— 


Speech on Radicalism and Conservatism. 

Chapter XI. 268 

Land Matters—Death of Lincoln—The 
New President—Speech on Reconstruction 
—Attack by Meredith. 

Chapter XII. 298 


Soldier’s Bonus—Land Bill—Eight Hour 
Bill—Reconstruction—Loss of Patronage— 
Redistricting—Johnson Impeachment Trial 
— Land Matters — The Bonus Again — 


Woman Suffrage Amendment. 

Chapter XIII. 320 

Election of Grant—Broken Health—Rail¬ 
way Land Grants—Retirement. 

Chapter XIV. 346 

Julian in the Campaign of 1872—Rockville 
Speech—Removal to Irvington—Campaign 
of 1876—The Louisiana Returning Board. 

Chapter XV. 375 


Articles for the Reviews—Campaign of 1880 
—Political Recollections—Death of Laura 
Giddings Julian—Election of Cleveland— 
Surveyor General of New Mexico. 

Chapter XVI. 397 

New Mexico—Spanish and Mexican Land 
Grants—Makes Enemies—Opposition to 
Confirmation—Plan for Settling Titles— 










GEORGE W. JULIAN 


11 


Page 

Speech in Behalf of Cleveland—Horne 
Again—Life of Giddings—Campaign of 
1892 —Sonnet by Isaac Hoover Julian— 

Last Speech—Latest Activities—Death— 
Funeral. 

Chapter- XVII. 422 

Newspaper Estimates—Personal Traits. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

1. Birthplace of George W. Julian.. 21 

2. George W. Julian, age twenty-eight. 61 

3. Julian, age fifty. 307 

4. Julian, age seventy-seven. 413 






INTRODUCTION 


By 

William Dudley Foulke 

The leaders of great movements that change the 
face of the world are of two kinds, quite different 
in character but both absolutely necessary for the 
work; one is the pioneer, who originates these 
movements or espouses them in their earliest 
stages and propagates them through the commun¬ 
ity ; the other is the political statesman, who takes 
them up later and modifies them so as to adapt 
them to existing conditions and embodies their 
results in institutions of government. 

In the great struggle for the elimination of slav¬ 
ery Indiana has produced two such leaders, one 
of each kind, George W. Julian and Oliver P. 
Morton. They both came from Wayne County at 
the eastern edge of the State and they both at¬ 
tained their early development in the county seat, 
the little village of Centerville. They were essen¬ 
tially different, and were even antipathetic in their 
conduct and their modes of thought. They were 
likened to “two great lions that could not live in 
the same forest”, but in spite of their differences 
the results they obtained in the development of the 
great principle that America should no longer be 
the home of slavery have been beyond calculation. 

I wrote many years ago a biography of Oliver 
P. Morton; it is now my grateful task to write 


(13) 


14 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

these few lines of introduction to the biography 
of George W. Julian, a man whom I revered for 
his fearless espousal of the cause of human rights 
at a time when this involved calumny, obloquy 
and personal disaster, and a man whom I greatly 
loved in later years during the declining days of 
his life. 

George W. Julian was essentially the pioneer; 
not merely that he was born in a pioneer’s cabin 
in the early days of Indiana and lived during his 
youth and early manhood in a pioneer community 
sometimes as a rustic schoolmaster bringing to 
order the bullies of his school, then acting as rod- 
man in surveying the land for early public works, 
and afterwards as a lawyer in his rural town; 
but he was also a spiritual pioneer to that com¬ 
munity itself as well as to the wider world, lead¬ 
ing his fellow citizens along the pathways of lib¬ 
eral thought, of “truth against orthodoxy”, and of 
political independence rather than blind party al¬ 
legiance. He was one of the early protagonists 
for human rights, the right of women to equal 
suffrage, the right of the naturalized citizen as 
opposed to the bigotry of Know Nothingism, and 
most of all the right of the negro to his freedom. 

Like a number of others who were leaders in 
this struggle for liberty, he came from an ancestry 
composite in its character—French, English, 
Scotch, Spanish and German—excellant ingredi¬ 
ents for that best output of the melting pot, the 
genuine American. From the Huguenot Rene St. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


15 


Julien who left France on the occasion of the 
revocation of the Edict of Nantes and fought 
under William of Orange at the Battle of the 
Boyne, he received that spirit of resistance to 
oppression which characterized his life. This was 
united with the sturdiness of the German and 
tempered with the liberalism of his immediate 
Quaker progenitors. Such an inheritance, to¬ 
gether with his surroundings in the early days 
when Indiana was a forest and the home of his 
widowed mother was exposed to the hostile in¬ 
cursions of the savages, was well calculated to 
produce the character, intrepid and uncompro¬ 
mising, of a devoted lover of liberty. And so it 
was. As soon as the evils of negro slavery were 
fully presented to him he was willing to renounce 
all, professional advantages, including a lucrative 
partnership and valuable clients, and to incur 
social ostracism, the opprobrium of the communi¬ 
ty in which he lived and afterwards (when he 
went to Congress) the bitter denunciation and 
contempt of the slave holding oligarchy in that 
body, in behalf of those human rights which he 
held fundamental and more essential to mankind 
than any law, creed or compromise which denied 
them. 

I can feel thrilling through my own veins today 
that same indignant repudiation of time-serving 
concessions to expediency such as were demanded 
of those who resisted the domination of the slave 
power in the early fifties and are still demanded 


16 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

for the support of party platforms and candidates 
at the hands of those who know that they are 
unworthy. Though I realize most fully that the 
advances of the world must be made through com¬ 
promise and by the curtailment of high ideals 
in their application to practical necessities, yet 
I cannot withhold the highest honor from a man 
who maintained these ideals in the face of a world 
which repudiated them, who stood firm in what 
seemed to his contemporaries a hopeless cause 
but one which has been more than justified by the 
verdict of posterity. Such a man was George W. 
Julian. Not only Indiana, but America and all 
the world has been the better for his apostolate. 

WILLIAM DUDLEY FOULKE 

Richmond, Ind. 


May, 1923 


AUTHOR’S PREFACE 


While writing his illuminating biography of 
Fleeming Jenkin, Robert Louis Stevenson record¬ 
ed in a private letter his pleasure in digging into 
the past of a dead friend and finding him “at 
every spade-full shine brighter”. So it has been 
a peculiar satisfaction as I have studied the career 
of my father to see the picture of the man whose 
daily companion I was in his declining years, 
happily rounded out and filled in by a survey of 
his youth and active manhood. His character had 
not the complexities that sometimes puzzle the 
student; indeed it was so transparent that one 
could not be with him long or frequently without 
understanding its mainsprings. To be sure, I 
have been a little surprised at the severity of 
some of his earlier utterances; for a certain judi¬ 
cial quality, a tone of moderation and restraint, 
characterized his last years. But one must bear 
in mind the very different situations presented. 
It is said that every man has his block given him 
and that the figure he cuts must depend to a great 
extent on the shape of that, on the knots and 
twists that existed in it from the beginning. To 
a man of his nature there was no alternative in 
dealing with a great evil but to be “as harsh as 
truth and as uncompromising as justice”. 

He once said to me that but for the question of 
human slavery and his service in helping to bring 


2—24142 


(17) 


18 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

about its overthrow his life would not seem to 
have been worth while, a remark which shows 
that he only partially envisaged the situation. It 
is true that slavery was the transcendent abomi¬ 
nation of his time, and in entering the lists against 
it and never wavering until its final extinction he 
displayed a singleness of purpose and a steadfast¬ 
ness to principle that were alike admirable and 
effective. But if there had been no slavery, and 
if no other great issue had challenged his atten¬ 
tion (an almost impossible hypothesis) yet a per¬ 
sonality so unique, so pleasing a combination of 
tenderness and belligerence, of mind and heart, of 
seriousness and mirth, a character so simple, 
straightforward and companionable withal, must 
have been its own sufficient excuse for being. But 
because he regarded his anti-slavery crusade as the 
vital and dominant fact of his career I have 
thought it wise to confine my narrative chiefly to 
this, only lightly touching on the more personal 
side. 

The world is so full of books, and every angle 
of the struggle against slavery is so sure to be set 
forth, as well as every actor involved, that the 
deciding factor in venturing upon this brief chron¬ 
icle is my conviction that it possesses another and 
compelling claim to attention, and a timeliness too, 
in the lesson it embodies of the duty of independ¬ 
ent judgment, particularly in regard to public 
questions, of fidelity to principle even though one 
forfeit by such action fellowship greatly prized. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


19 


It is this attribute, so marked and dominant as 
to partake of the nature of a quality, or essential 
property, that gives to his career a unique impor¬ 
tance. 

Carlyle declares that history is connected bi¬ 
ography. Certainly the history of Indiana would 
not be complete without some account of this anti¬ 
slavery Congressman, this political free-lance who 
played a conspicuous and influential part in a 
struggle that now seems almost as remote as our 
Revolutionary War, so foreign were its under¬ 
lying motives from those that control society 
today. 

Soon after removing to Irvington my father 
prepared an autobiography, not for publication 
(this he expressly stipulated) but as a memorial 
for his children. He declared that his life had 
been too uneventful and that his account of it 
abounded in too many details to interest the pub¬ 
lic. “And yet”, he added, “I do not disguise the 
fact that it interests me profoundly. Notwith¬ 
standing its many ills I have clung to it as a 
priceless possession and crowded into it the sin- 
cerest endeavors to make it honorable and worthy. 
Whether regarded as the prelude to another and 
an endless existence or as the fleeting boon of 
a few short years, it is to me an unspeakably 
momentous fact. ‘What has been the object of 
so much partiality’ says a thoughtful writer, ‘and 
has been delighted and pained by so many emo¬ 
tions, might claim, even if the highest interest 


20 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

were out of the question, that a short memorial 
should be retained by him who has possessed it, 
has seen it all to this moment depart, and can 
never recall it\ In this spirit I have written, 
fully resolved that those who are to follow me 
shall not grope in the dark as to my character 
and work as I have been obliged to do respecting 
my own ancestry/’ 

From this narrative, and from the Journals 
that were the basis for it I have drawn the chief 
facts of the story here presented, in some cases 
using his own words and expressions. I have 
also consulted his two volumes of Speeches , Po¬ 
litical Recollections , Life of Giddings and many 
other volumes, besides old letter hies dating as 
far back as 1836. I have made no effort to 
recover my father’s letters addressed to others 
except in the case of Joshua R. Giddings. 

Acknowledgments are gratefully made to the 
Hon. William Dudley Foulke of Richmond, Dr. 
James Albert Woodburn of Indiana University, 
and Prof. Harlow Lindley of Earlham College for 
encouragement and helpful suggestions. I am 
especially indebted to Dr. John W. Oliver, Di¬ 
rector of the Indiana Historical Commission, for 
aid in verifying statements and references and for 
valued counsel. 

G. J. C. 

Irvington, 

April, 1923 




Birthplace of George W. Julian, one mile and a half southwest of Centerville, Indiana. 

















CHAPTER 1 


Ancestry and Early Life 

In the afternoon of May 5, 1817, a wayfarer 
journeying on horseback along a rough road that 
was scarcely more than a bridle-path, about a 
mile and a half southwest of Centerville, Wayne 
County, Indiana, halted before the cabin of Isaac 
Julian, pioneer justice of the peace, and was 
greeted by the latter with an invitation to come 
in and make the acquaintance of George Washing¬ 
ton. Many years later the traveller in relating 
the incident told how on entering the two-story 
log house the admiring father held before him a 
lusty infant only a few hours old upon whom had 
already been bestowed the revered name of the 
Father of his Country. That it was a very young 
country is indicated by the fact that its father 
had been dead less than eighteen years, and In¬ 
diana, the sixth commonwealth to enter the orig¬ 
inal sisterhood of thirteen, had worn her State¬ 
hood honors not yet a twelvemonth. Jonathan Jen¬ 
nings, that redoubtable foe of slavery, who had 
taken the lead in preventing the legalization of 
the institution in Indiana, 1 was governor of the 

1. For a discussion of Jonathan Jennings’ stand against the 
extension of slavery into Indiana Territory, see Dunn’s Indiana and 
Indianans, Vol. I, pp. 248-249, 304 ; Dunn’s Indiana, pp. 389, 390, 409, 
419 ; Journal of Indiana House of Representatives, First Session, pp. 
10-11 ; a paper on Jonathan Jennings, by Governor Samuel M. Ralston, 
Third History Conference Proceedings, 1921, pp. 48, 49. 


(21) 


22 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

new State, which contained only about 65,000 peo¬ 
ple, most of them residing along the Ohio river, 
on the lower Wabash and in the Whitewater 
valley. 

It was indeed a primitive society irtto which 
this child had been born. Wayne County, which 
until 1810 had been a part of Dearborn County, 
then marked the northern boundary of civiliza¬ 
tion in this state. Only five years before, the 
cabin of Isaac Julian had been used as a block¬ 
house or fort in which the settlers gathered for 
protection against the Indians, and with the ex¬ 
ception of a few clearings the country was an 
unbroken wilderness, in which bears and other 
wild animals abounded. Wolves did much damage 
to livestock and the records show that for the 
year 1816 wolf claims in the county amounted to 
$84.00, the bounty being one dollar for each scalp. 2 
That men and women of gentle breeding and a 
degree of culture left comfortable homes farther 
east, establishing themselves and rearing families 
amid hardships and actual dangers that have 
never been adequately set forth, is eloquent testi¬ 
mony to the hardihood, patriotism and faith of 
the founders of these mid-western States. The 
fact that many of them, like the Julians, came 
hither in order to escape from the demoralizing 
influence of negro slavery only adds an element 
of moral principle to the situation. 

George Washington Julian was an early prod- 


2. Young’s History of Wayne County, p. 83. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


23 


uct of the “melting-pot”, for in his veins flowed 
French, Spanish, Scotch and English blood on 
his father’s side, while his mother’s contribution 
so far as known was entirely German. Two an¬ 
cestors stand out in family annals with special 
vividness—a Frenchman and a German—and the 
impress of each was plainly distinguishable in the 
character under consideration. Curiously enough, 
both were soldiers by profession, and both emi¬ 
grated to this country to escape from autocracy 
and oppression. 

Rene St. Julien, the founder of this branch of 
the family in the United States, was a native of 
Paris and a Huguenot who left France on the 
occasion of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes 
in 1685 and went to Holland, attaching himself 
to the fortunes of William of Orange. He accom¬ 
panied Prince William in his expedition to Eng¬ 
land in 1688 and for his services at the Battle of 
the Boyne two years later received from that 
monarch, now become King William III of Eng¬ 
land, “a grant of land beyond the Mississippi”. 
St. Julien at this time was upwards of forty years 
of age, but although he had grown weary of 
soldiering, the spirit of adventure was still strong 
within him. In his various rovings he had heard 
much of the New World, and the religious atmos¬ 
phere of France continuing to be inhospitable to 
men of his views he determined to seek his distant 
land-grant. Accordingly, probably early in the 
decade beginning with 1690, he set sail for Amer- 


24 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


ica, tarrying a year on the Island of Bermuda, 
where he married Margaret Bulloch, a lady half 
Spanish and half Scotch, reputed to have been 
possessed of wealth and beauty. On reaching this 
country and learning that the Mississippi was far 
in the wilderness the idea of immediate occupancy 
of the land-grant was abandoned; but Rene is said 
to have impressed upon his children that they 
were not to consider themselves permanently 
established until they reached the Mississippi. Of 
course all such claims were outlawed by the Revo¬ 
lutionary War. The St. Juliens first purchased an 
estate in Cecil County, Maryland, on the Chesa¬ 
peake Bay, but later settled near Winchester, Va., 
and their descendants are scattered over many 
states, especially in the South. Rene St. Julien 
is reputed to have been a giant in stature, with 
red hair, a quick temper and an indomitable will. 
It is also said that he was a Presbyterian of the 
strictest sort, and that he particularly disliked 
Quakers because of their testimonies against war 
and slavery. Whether he or his children made 
the change in the name is not known, but it has 
ever since been spelled Julian or Julien. 

The Isaac Julien referred to in Irving’s Life 
of Washington 3 as residing near Winchester at 
the time of Braddock’s Defeat was a son of Rene 
who had married Barbara White, daughter of Dr. 
Robert White, a surgeon in the British navy, and 
Margaret Hoge White. Isaac and Barbara after- 

3. Vol. I, Chap. XVIII, p. 216. 





GEORGE W. JULIAN 25 

wards removed to Randolph County, North Caro¬ 
lina, where a son of theirs, likewise named Isaac, 
married Sarah Long, a Quakeress, whose grand¬ 
father, Edward Long, [spelled Langue in his will] 
had accompained William Penn to America, prob¬ 
ably on the occasion of the latter’s second visit 
in 1699. Isaac and Sarah came to Indiana Ter¬ 
ritory in 1816, following their third son, the pio¬ 
neer Justice of the Peace who had settled here 
in 1808, and hither too came nine of their family 
of twelve children. 4 Isaac Julien the second, like 
his grandfather Rene, was a man of strong con¬ 
victions, which he did not hesitate to make known, 
whether or not they coincided with the views of 
his associates. It is related that on one occasion, 
learning that the Friends at West Grove, Wayne 
County, had refused to allow some Dunkers to 
hold funeral services in their meeting-house, he 
saddled his mare, galloped to the scene, and after 
characterizing in fitting terms the proposed re¬ 
striction, he boldly assured the Dunkers that the 
meeting-house was at their disposal. Although 
without authority in the matter (he was not a 
member of the meeting) such was the effect 
of his commanding appearance, made more im¬ 
pressive by his advanced age, and in so great 
respect was he held, that the Quakers imme¬ 
diately dispersed and the funeral took place. 
The physical strength of the Julians was some- 

4. The names of these were: Bohan, Tobias, Isaac, Zeruah, Ja¬ 
cob, Elizabeth, Rene, Shubal, Sarah, Elinor, Martha and Barbara, the 
last two being twins. 


26 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

times a neighborhood asset, a fact which might 
be illustrated by numerous stories that have taken 
their place in local tradition. They are also noted 
for their sense of justice, love of reading, and 
longevity. 

The other ancestor whose name is held in par¬ 
ticular honor by this branch of the Julian family 
was John Rudolph Waymire, a native of Hanover, 
who served under George II of Great Britain at 
the Battle of Dettingen in 1743 and subsequently 
joined the forces of Frederick the Great of Prussia, 
becoming one of that famous regiment composed 
of men of great height and physical prowess. 5 
No land-grant lured him hither, nor did religious 
persecution play any part in his coming. Tradi¬ 
tion has it that Waymire, for distinguished serv¬ 
ices, had been made provisional governor of one 
of King Frederick’s conquered provinces, in which 
capacity he was commanded to perform an act 
that did not coincide with his conscientious scru¬ 
ples. He accordingly refused, giving his reasons, 
whereupon he was clapped into prison for a 
month. This confinement afforded time for re¬ 
flection on a number of subjects, and the erst¬ 
while governor emerged from bonds with the de¬ 
termination to migrate to the American colonies 
of His Britannic Majesty, which he had heard 
offered a degree of freedom and opportunity un¬ 
known elsewhere. Information of this resolve 

5. According to one story he was one of King Frederick’s body¬ 
guard, no member of which was less than seven feet in height. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


27 


reaching King Frederick, the unruly subject was 
at once remanded to jail for a much longer period, 
to cure him of his roving fancy. When again 
at large, Waymire appeared docile and content. 
He was, however, only biding his time, and with 
the help of faithful friends he at length escaped 
from Prussia, landing in Philadelphia in the year 
1750 with his wife and two children, his father 
and two sisters, his mother having died on the 
voyage, which consumed more than six weeks. 

John Rudolph Waymire was the father of fif¬ 
teen children, one of whom, Elizabeth, became the 
wife of Andrew Hoover, son of another German 
immigrant, likewise named Andrew, and a mem¬ 
ber of the Society of Friends, or Quakers. 6 This 
young couple first established a home in Randolph 
County, North Carolina, coming later to Indiana 
Territory by way of Ohio and it was to their 
log cabin in Wayne County, on a bluff command¬ 
ing a beautiful view of the Whitewater Valley 
that Isaac Julian (the third) went a-wooing in 
the year 1809, the object of his suit being their 
daughter Rebecca. George treasured the memory 
of this grandmother, Elizabeth Waymire, and in 
his latest years used to recall affectionately her 
blue eyes, sunny face, and the musical tones of 
her voice, as she called to him, “Kom, Georg, kom 
zu hausen.” It is significant that the Hoovers, 
like the Julians, left the South because of slavery, 

6. That Andrew Sr. wrote the name Huber appears from an old 
deed now in possession of his great-great-grandson, Andrew Hoover 
of Richmond, Ind. 


28 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


that they too live to advanced age, and possess 
in an unusual degree the courage of their convic¬ 
tions. David Hoover, the oldest son of Andrew 
and Elizabeth, laid off the city of Richmond, now 
the Wayne county-seat, and gave it its name, he 
and his brother Henry being honorably conspic¬ 
uous in the early politics of Wayne County. 7 

Rebecca Hoover’s union with Isaac Julian was 
stoutly opposed by her father on the ground that 
the prospective bride-groom was not a “birthright 
Friend”, that is, one whose parents were both 
members of that Society at the time of his birth. 
As a result the marriage took place at Elkhorn, 
south of Richmond, at the home of Richard Rue, a 
justice of the peace who had been one of General 
George Rogers Clark’s soldiers and had lived for 
several years in captivity among the Indians. The 
strict but not implacable father soon forgave the 
young couple however, in token of which he pre¬ 
sented them with a beautiful service of pewter 
“dresser ware”, then much in vogue. 

Isaac Julian, a man of scholarly tastes who ap¬ 
preciated the value of educational facilities in a 
new community, after assisting in clearing the 
land where Richmond now stands, taught the first 
school in the county during the winter of 1808- 
1809. He served as a private in the War of 1812 
in Capt. Enos Butler’s Company, eighth Regi- 

7. Herbert Hoover, who gained world-wide renown for invaluable 
service during the World War of 1914-1918, is another descendant of 
the German immigrant, Andrew Hoover, Sr„ his great grandfather 
having been a first cousin of David, Frederick, Henry and Rebecca. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


29 


ment, Indiana Militia, Col. George Hunt, Com¬ 
mander. He was commissioned a justice of the 
peace by both Governors Posey and Jennings, held 
the office of County Commissioner, and was one 
of the first trustees of the town of Centerville. 8 
In 1822 he was elected as a Whig to the Indiana 
Legislature, which met in Corydon, then the cap¬ 
ital of the State. 9 

Soon after his return from this legislative ses¬ 
sion, having become pecuniarily involved by sign¬ 
ing some notes for a friend on the eve of a finan¬ 
cial panic, he sold his pleasant farm, paid off the 
notes, and removed to the New Purchase, 10 select¬ 
ing a site about eight miles from the present city 
of Lafayette, where prices were considerably 
lower than in the older settlements. First going 
alone on horseback to the chosen location, he 
erected a log house, and then returned to conduct 
thither his family. The journey was safely made 
by the father, mother and six children (one an 
infant of half a year) in a covered wagon; 11 but 

8. Young’s JJistory of Wayne County, p. 183. 

9. A part of #iis salary he invested in a set of silver teaspoons 
marked “R. J.” which have descended to a great-granddaughter, a 
Rebecca of the present generation. 

10. Secured from the Miami, Delaware and Pottawatamie Indians 
by treaties negotiated in October, 1818, Jonathan Jennings, Lewis Cass 
and Benjamin Parke being the purchasing agents for the State. It 
covered the central portion of Indiana and comprised about eight 
million acres. 

11. The children of Isaac and Rebecca Hoover Julian were John 
M., b. 1811, d. 1834 ; Sarah, b. 1813, m. Jesse Holman (son of George 
Holman who with Richard Rue spent several years in captivity among 
the Indians), d. 1902; Jacob Burnet, b. 1815, m. Martha Bryan, prac¬ 
ticed law in Centerville and Indianapolis, was judge of the Marion 


30 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

the projector of the enterprise, who had had a 
fever before setting out, suffered a relapse and 
died soon after their arrival, on December 12, 
1823, in the cabin that was to have been their 
home, his age being forty-three years. His re¬ 
mains were placed in a rude coffin, hewn out of 
an oak, and buried on the bluff near by, the spot 
being afterwards marked by a headstone and an 
iron fence. With the kind assistance of a neigh¬ 
bor on the Wea plain, Abel Janney, Rebecca 
Julian and her children were enabled to return 
to Wayne County. This Good Samaritan, a total 
stranger up to that time, conducted the bereaved 
family through the unbroken wilderness, himself 
going alongside on his own horse. Many inter¬ 
esting tales in which friendly Indians and wild 
animals figure, date back to this expedition, 
which was attended with much suffering and hard¬ 
ship. Upon their arrival the widow and children 
were received with open arms by her brother 
Henry Hoover, whose hospitality they were glad 
to accept for the winter, and Abel Janney, de¬ 
clining all compensation for his services, left im¬ 
mediately on his return journey. They never saw 
him again. The knight-errantry of pioneer days 
has never been adequately celebrated, but from 
sundry side-lights such as this we recognize that 

Circuit Court, d. 1898; George Washington, b. 1817, d. 1899; Eliza¬ 
beth, b. 1819, m. first Allison Willetts, second Andrew Beaty, d. 1889 ; 
Henry, b. 1821, d, 1823 ; and Isaac Hoover, b. 1823, m. Virginia Spil- 
lard, edited newspapers in Centerville and Richmond, Ind., and San 
Marcos, T«x., d. 1910. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


31 


although it lacked the pomp and circumstance of 
chivalry’s earlier and more renowned exploits, it 
was not less admirable. 

Rebecca Julian had saved one hundred and 
sixty-five dollars from the general wreck of her 
fortunes, with which a farm of fifty acres, three 
and one-half miles northwest of Centerville was 
purchased, where the battle of life proceeded. In 
order to pay for her children’s schooling, she did 
the washing and mending for the school-master, 
besides weaving and spinning for those who 
needed her services. The older children were em¬ 
ployed by neighboring farmers, while the younger 
ones supplemented their mother’s labors in the 
care of their own farm. Their fare was substantial, 
consisting almost entirely of corn-bread and milk. 
When milk failed, birch-bark or spice-brush tea 
was substituted, and on Sundays they indulged in 
the luxury of coffee and warm biscuits, to which 
were added maple molasses and chicken when they 
had a guest. They raised every year the flax 
which was spun and woven into linen for summer 
wear, a surplus being exchanged for “calico and 
other finery” for the girls, while their sheep sup¬ 
plied wool for winter garments. Sometimes on 
rainy days, after the necessary chores were at¬ 
tended to, the boys occupied themselves in making 
their own straw hats, which were not marked by 
a dull uniformity, but frequently expressed in¬ 
dividual taste and superior deftness. 

In the evening, while the mother and daughters 


32 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

were spinning, John used to entertain the family 
by reading aloud “The Brownie of Bodsbeck ”, the 
poetry of Robert Burns, the speeches of Henry 
Clay and other public men, and by telling stories 
of ghosts and fairies. This oldest brother, who 
was destined to drop out of life at the age of 
twenty-three, exercised a lasting influence not 
only on the younger members of his own family, 

but throughout the settlement, and fifty years 

* 

after his death aged men and women recalled 
with glowing faces his words and deeds. A school 
teacher at the age of sixteen, and his mother's 
special pride and hope, he was also a leader and 
exemplar in the little community, and George’s 
first lessons in democracy came from hearing 
John read from Thomas Paine’s Common Sense 
and Rights of Man, while his abhorrence of negro 
slavery was early awakened by listening to Gar¬ 
rison’s Liberator and the poetry of Cowper as 
set forth by this enthusiastic young advocate. 
Their mother read to them regularly from the 
Bible, never omitting an opportunity to impress 
lessons of truthfulness, obedience and thrift, and 
to inspire them with worthy ambition. 12 

Rebecca Hoover Julian was a typical pioneer 
mother, facing the privations and responsibilities 
of life with courage and cheer. Her earnest face 
framed in its Quaker cap, looked out upon a world 
where a multitude of tasks waited to be per¬ 
formed, and a vigorous physical equipment ena- 


12. Julian’s unpublished Autobiography. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


33 


bled her to do her full share. Writing many years 
later with characteristic frankness and simplicity 
of those early days she said: 

“The country around us was an entire wilder¬ 
ness, with here and there a small cabin contain¬ 
ing a small family. We were nearly all beginners 
at that time, and although we had to work almost 
day and night we were not discouraged. 

“We were in fine spirits until the battle was 
fought at Tippecanoe by General Harrison and 
the Indians. After that, we lived in continual 
fear and passed many sleepless nights. Well do 
I recollect how I kept my head raised off my 
pillow in listening, expecting the savages to come 
and take our scalps. We had every reason to 
believe that such would be the case, as they were 
frequently to be seen scouting all around us. At 
length the time arrived when two men were sta¬ 
tioned at our fort for our protection. My husband 
also enlisted and served three months as a soldier, 
but was not called out from the fort. We were 
truly thankful that there was no fighting to be 
done, as we were then few in number and com¬ 
pletely in the power of the enemy. But it is 
evident they intended harming only such persons 
as they thought hostile to them. A young man 
by the name of Shortridge was killed by the In¬ 
dians about three miles from our fort. He had 
on at the time a portion of the dress of another 
man, who had made threats against them, and it 
is supposed they mistook him for the latter. In 


3—24142 


34 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


the spring following Charles Morgan and his two 
half-brothers were killed at their sugar camp, 
scalped, and one of them thrown into the fire. 
This happened about six miles from our residence. 
This was quite alarming; we knew not what to 
do; we gathered ourselves in small groups in order 
to hold counsel. Finally we concluded to leave our 
homes; which we did time after time for a space 
of two years. We were grateful indeed to see 
peace returning, so that we could again enjoy our 
homes. 

“There were many and serious trials in the 
beginning of this country with those who settled 
amid the heavy timber, having nothing to depend 
on for a living but their own industry. Such was 
our situation. However, we were blessed with 
health and strength, and were able to accomplish 
all that was necessary to be done. Our husbands 
cleared the ground and assisted each other in 
rolling the logs. We often went with them on 
these occasions to assist in the way of cooking 
for the hands. We had first-rate times, just such 
as hard-working men and women can appreciate. 
We were not what would now be called fashion¬ 
able cooks: we had no pound-cakes, preserves or 
jellies, but the substantial, prepared in plain, 
honest, oldfashioned style. This is one reason 
why we were so blessed with health—we had none 
of your dainties, nick-nacks, and many fixings 
that are worse than nothing. There are many 
diseases that we never heard of thirty or forty 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


35 


years ago, such as dyspepsia, neuralgia, and many 
others too tedious to mention. It was not fashion¬ 
able at that time to be weakly. We could take 
our spinningwheels and walk two miles to a spin¬ 
ning frolic, do our day’s work, and after a first- 
rate supper join in some innocent amusement for 
the evening. We did not take very particular 
pains to keep our hands white: we knew they 
were made to use to our advantage; therefore 
we never thought of having hands just to look at. 
Each settler had to go and assist his neighbors 
ten or fifteen days or thereabouts, in order to get 
help again in log-rolling time—this was the only 
way to get assistance. 

“I have thought proper to mention these mat¬ 
ters in order that people now may know what the 
first settlers had to undergo. We however did not 
complain half as much as people do now. Our 
diet was plain, our clothing we manufactured our¬ 
selves; we lived independent and were all on an 
equality. I look back to those by-gone days with 
great interest. Now how the scene has changed! 
Children of these same pioneers know nothing of 
hardships; they are spoiled by indulgence and are 
generally planning ways and means to live with¬ 
out work.” 13 

George, at the age of seven or eight, happened 
to be a witness to a proposal of marriage received 
by his mother, who was only thirty-three at the 

13. Letter of Rebecca Julian in Wayne County Journal, a news¬ 
paper published at Centerville by Hosea Elliott in 1854, reproduced in 
Young’s History of Wayne County, p. 66. 


36 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

time of her husband’s death, and the impression 
of her dignified bearing and the seriousness of 
her face as she emphasized her refusal by re¬ 
ferring to the care of her children as the ruling 
purpose of her life, fixed itself indelibly in his 
memory and deepened his almost reverential love 
for her. 

It was George’s custom to gather every year 
quantities of walnuts (as many as fifteen bushels 
one fall) the hulls of which were sold at Nathan 
Bond’s carding and fulling mill at six cents per 
bushel, the money being used to buy books and 
stationery. He was the marketman of the family, 
making regular trips to Centerville with butter, 
eggs, chickens, etc. to be exchanged for dry goods. 
He used to recount to his children how on these 
expeditions he carried his shoes tied together and 
swung over his shoulder “to save them”, stopping 
beside the roadway to put them on just before he 
entered town, in order to make a creditable ap¬ 
pearance, and how he used to roll up his trousers 
while at work, as high as he possibly could, for 
the purpose of keeping them clean, letting them 
down only when he went to the village or on 
some unusual occasion; also, how he went 
“a-swimming” seventeen times in one day, which 
feat was followed by a protracted attack of ague. 
That boy nature is much the same in all genera¬ 
tions is shown by the fact that at the age of eight 
he fell into the popular vice of stealing water¬ 
melons, which he declared was not his only sin- 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


37 


ful accomplishment, for, finding one day a bottle 
of whiskey in the fence corner where Humphrey 
Lloyd, an old toper, was mowing, he helped him¬ 
self so liberally that as he was approaching home 
he found the earth hitting him in the face and 
his mother gazing at him with mingled amaze¬ 
ment and concern. He became fearfully sick, and 
was never afterwards intoxicated. His most 
marked characteristic until he was nearly grown 
was an ungovernable and painful bashfulness, 
which prompted him to run like a deer if any 
visitor attempted to talk with him. A look would 
set him in motion. Of course this natural timid¬ 
ity was largely outgrown, and in later life was 
somewhat counterbalanced by other qualities; but 
it was never conquered, and he declared that it 
was not only a source of anxiety and suffering, 
but an ugly stumbling block in the path of his 
ambition. 

Physical development was not neglected in the 
pioneer community, and George was a master of 
swimming, hopping, running, jumping and climb¬ 
ing trees while his only successful rival in a foot¬ 
race was one Jehu Martin. At the age of sixteen 
he had reached the height of six feet and two 
inches, and could lift a blacksmith's anvil with one 
hand and toss it out of the shop. He used also 
to hold his own at one end of a handspike in a 
“solid lift” with David Beeson, the strongest man 
in that section of the country. His zeal some¬ 
times outran his discretion, for in a lifting match 


38 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

with his cousin Caleb Kinley he received an in¬ 
jury which disabled him for many weeks and 
caused a limp from which he never recovered. He 
was fond of dogs and horses, and after the lapse 
of seventy years recalled the names and charac¬ 
teristics of those he had owned in early life. 

Entering school at the age of five years, his 
text-book was a copy of Barclay’s Apology; it 
being the custom in backwoods regions to equip 
the child just beginning the pursuit of knowledge 
with a volume selected, often at random, from the 
family shelves, and Isaac Julian’s library was 
made up entirely of serious books. It was an old- 
fashioned district school continuing three months 
of the year at most, and the walk to and from 
was a long one for the very young. One day 
in crossing a swollen stream on a foot-log George 
was so unfortunate as to drop the Apology, and 
as the current rapidly bore it away his agony was 
such that he carried a vivid recollection of it into 
old age, and he said that his howls must have 
been heard for miles. Fortunately, his brother 
Jacob was able, by swift measures, to rescue the 
treasure, to the great delight of all concerned. 
Books were rare and precious in that primitive 
society, and he never ceased to regard them with 
a consideration bordering on reverence. 

Few teachers in the middle west in those days 
could take their scholars beyond the 'Single Rule 
of Three,’ and Julian’s account of his efforts to 
master Pike’s Arithmetic was both amusing and 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


39 


pathetic. His absorption in study became so in¬ 
tense that for a considerable period he denied 
himself all sports and gave his entire time, after 
work, to books, with a twofold result: he became 
a recognized neighborhood authority in English 
grammar and spelling, and his eyes were seriously 
affected. The Bible was read through again and 
again, and the dictionary was studied with inde¬ 
fatigable zeal, words and their formation posses¬ 
sing for him a fascination that was never out¬ 
grown. Referring in later years to his unyield¬ 
ing spirit, once he had decided on a course of ac¬ 
tion, he related an incident that occurred while he 
was attending the school of Andrew Nicholson. 14 
Webster was the new authority in spelling, and 
Nicholson duly followed his lead in omitting the 
“k” in such words as ‘mimic/ ‘fabric' and the like. 
George had been brought up on Walker, the gen¬ 
erally recognized standard, and he declined to 
abandon the “k”. Nicholson insisted on his com¬ 
plying with the rule, but he stoutly refused, finally 
having his way in the face of the school and to 
the peril of its discipline. Several years after¬ 
wards, when he had himself become a teacher, he 
wrote Mr. Nicholson a letter acknowledging his 
fault and asking pardon, to which the latter re¬ 
sponded in the kindest terms. The matter did 
not end there, however, for when Julian first be¬ 
came a candidate for Congress his rebellious 

14. A well-known schoolmaster of eastern Indiana esteemed for 
his personal virtues no less than for his scholastic attainments, who 
lived almost a century, retaining his facuities to the last. 


40 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

espousal of the letter “k” was alleged as a reason 
why he should not be elected, whereupon his old 
teacher came promptly to the rescue, stating the 
facts and ridiculing the desperation of the opposi¬ 
tion. 

It is perhaps worthy of note that from early 
childhood the society of girls appealed to him 
rather more than that of boys and that in what¬ 
ever differences and squabbles arose he always 
constituted himself their defender. Fond of 
physical sports as he was, and skilled in outdoor 
games and accomplishments, there was also a pro¬ 
nounced gentleness about him and a fondness for 
the quiet of the fireside and the conversation of 
thoughtful elderly folk. One of the joys of his 
young life was to lie on the floor and listen to the 
conversation of his mother and certain of her 
neighbors, particularly Mrs. Martha Sackett, the 
intelligent and capable wife of David F. Sackett, 
for many years clerk of the county. These two 
women discussed local affairs, religion, politics, 
books, the fashions, schools and their children’s 
progress, all in a manner that held him 
spell-bound, and at sight of Mother Sackett en¬ 
tering the door-yard, he invariably cut short the 
task in which he was engaged to avail himself of 
the entertainment he knew to be forthcoming. 

At that time there yet lingered a number of 
Revolutionary soldiers, venerable men who ex¬ 
cited his enthusiastic admiration and whose 
words he eagerly drank in at Fourth of July cele- 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


41 


brations where they sat in the front row on the 
platform. The winter preceding his tenth birth¬ 
day was spent at the home of his paternal grand¬ 
parents, with whom he was a favorite and who 
because of advanced years needed attentions such 
as a sprightly and willing lad could render. He 
attended school and assisted his grandmother (the 
Quaker Sarah Long) with the household tasks, 
regularly accompanying her to meeting, where he 
sat beside her in the gallery and was duly im¬ 
pressed by the stillness which commonly charac¬ 
terized the occasion. 

Julian once declared that in the rude pio¬ 
neer community in which he was born and 
reared, religion appeared to be the chief and all 
absorbing concern, its most popular form being 
“a volcanic sort of Methodism manifesting itself 
not so much in a struggle for heaven as in a 
scuffle to escape hell.” His own family connec¬ 
tions were with the Hicksite Friends, but the 
Methodist revivals and camp meetings appealed 
to his dramatic sense and were regarded by him 
rather as spectacles than as spiritual awakeners. 
He was much interested also in “the occasional 
irruption into the neighborhood of an old Uni- 
versalist preacher, then well known in eastern 
Indiana and soundly hated by all orthodox peo¬ 
ple.” This was Jonathan Kidwell, who, although 
he had had little if any schooling even of the 
primitive variety then and there attainable, was 
a vigorous thinker, prone to controversy, and 


42 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

t 

gifted in the use of invective. There were also 
several Free Thinkers, or “Infidels” as they were 
called, one of whom, Louis Hosier, an aged and 
eccentric farmer of rugged honesty and common 
sense, used frequently to ask the fifteen year old 
boy to read aloud to him from such works as Vol- 
ney’s Ruins, Frances Wright’s Lectures, Hume’s 
Essays, etc. No one seems to have become 
alarmed at the spectacle of a boy at this impres¬ 
sionable age falling under the influence of teach¬ 
ings so dangerous in the eyes of the great ma¬ 
jority of the people by whom he was surrounded. 
It is probable that his mother was aware of the 
readings, but if she knew the character of the 
books she doubtless consoled herself with the as¬ 
surance that he would safely weather the storm 
guided by that “inner light” in which her own re¬ 
liance lay. He was certainly learning to use his 
reasoning powers, and this period marked the 
beginning of a course of wide and varied investi¬ 
gation of theological subjects extending over 
many years. 15 

15. An article in The Unitarian Review for January, 1888, enti¬ 
tled “A Search After Truth,” gives an interesting account of his 
religious wanderings, the initial steps in which were taken at this 
time. 


CHAPTER II 


First Flights—Begins Practice of Laiv — Mar¬ 
riage—Elected to Legislature 

The question of a vocation was the occasion 
of much concern and was not settled hastily nor 
without serious misgivings. Three possible 
courses presented themselves. Farming was the 
most logical and popular means of livelihood in 
the pioneer community, but Julian seems to have 
had no special bias in this direction. His father 
and his brother John had both been teachers, and 
his own love of study was a further inducement 
to enter upon a profession which promised both 
personal satisfaction and the fulfillment of a com¬ 
munity need. Civil engineering offered an allur¬ 
ing prospect at that time, when canals, pikes and 
railroads were being projected all over Indiana 
and people were completely psychologized by the 
State’s brilliant future. 1 During his last two pe¬ 
riods at school, under the tutelage of the Quaker, 
James Osborn, 2 at West Grove and later of 

1. Noah Noble was then Governor, his administration being espe¬ 
cially notable for the beginning of the Wabash and Erie Canal, the 
construction of the Michigan Road and the issuing of several railway 
charters. Some one has said that canals (on paper) led from every 
man's doorway in every direction. 

2. Son of the famous Quaker preacher, Charles Osborn, who pub¬ 
lished at Mt. Pleasant, Ohio, an anti-slavery paper and was the first 
person who publicly advocated immediate and unconditional emancipa¬ 
tion of the slaves in this country. Article by George W. Julian on 
“The Rank of Charles Osborn as an Anti-slavery Pioneer” in the In¬ 
diana Historical Society Publications, Vol. II, No. 6, p. 233. 


(43) 


44 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

Samuel K. Hoshour, 3 a well known educator and 
preacher of the Disciples denomination, in Cen¬ 
terville, he had studied algebra, plane trigonom¬ 
etry and surveying, and in the summer of 1835, 
having procured a quadrant, he frequently aston¬ 
ished the inhabitants by determining the height 
of a tree, or the distance t** an object without 
actual measurement. Many refused to believe 
that this could be done, and were only convinced 
by their own repeated verifications of the young 
surveyor’s calculations. 

In September of this year he performed his 
first public service, five days’ labor with a spade 
on the National Road. His remuneration 
amounted to four dollars and twenty cents, the 
largest sum he had ever possessed, which he 
straightway invested in books, mathematical 
works which he boldly tackled and to which he 
persistently clung until he had mastered their in¬ 
tricacies. 

He was then eighteen years of age, and entered 
upon the profession of teaching in what was 
called “the Harvey district,” two miles west of his 
home. The most noteworthy incident of this ex¬ 
perience occurred in connection with the annual 
Christmas treat. It was an early custom, not 
confined to Indiana, for the schoolmaster to pro- 

3. Born in Pennsylvania in 1803. In 1837 he was conducting a 
book store in Centerville, Ind., at the same time teaching languages 
and mathematics in the County Seminary, editing the Wayne County 
Chronicle, preaching “every Lord’s Day” and writing the great part 
of his Altissonant Letters. Autobiography of Samuel K. Hoshour. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


45 


vide apples and cider in abundance on Christmas 
day, and the occasion was not infrequently 
marked by rowdyism. The year before, the 
teacher at the Harvey school, an aged man of in¬ 
firm health who had declined to treat, had been 
carried out astride of a rail and ducked repeat¬ 
edly in the icy water of a stream near by. The 
story of the old man’s piteous pleas for mercy and 
of the ruffianly conduct of the big boys who finally 
obliged him to order the refreshments was told 
throughout the neighborhood, and it is more than 
likely had something to do with Julian’s determi¬ 
nation to undertake that particular school. At 
any rate, he gave due notice that there would be 
no treating during his administration. The young 
schoolmaster had a mighty frame, together with 
a reputation for physical accomplishments; but 
some of his scholars were fully as large and pow¬ 
erfully built. As the day approached two rival 
parties developed, one determined to stand by the 
teacher and the other bent on forcing his sur¬ 
render. The people for miles around became 
interested, taking one side or the other, and con¬ 
gregating at the school house early on Christmas 
morning to witness or share in the conflict. It 
was soon manifest that the majority was with the 
teacher, and so, after giving vent to the accumu¬ 
lated excitement in a spirited spelling-match, a 
form of entertainment much and properly es¬ 
teemed at that time, the crowd quietly dispersed 
and there was no more treating in the Harvey 


46 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


school. The compensation was forty dollars for 
three months’ service, a princely sum in his eyes; 
but having decided to discard the blue jeans of 
his mother’s manufacture which up to this time 
had seemed altogether satisfactory, a consider¬ 
able part of the money was s;_ c in outfitting 
himself after the mode then prevailing among the 
well-to-do. 

The next summer he worked as rodman on the 
Whitewater Canal, at sixteen dollars per month, 
he and a Mr. Pritchard measuring every foot of the 
route between Hagerstown and Lawrenceburg. 
His employer was an old friend of his father’s, 
General Elisha Long, one of the State’s Canal 
Commissioners, with whom he presently had a 
disagreement which led to his abandoning the un¬ 
dertaking and returning home on foot, in no very 
amiable state of mind. In view of the subsequent 
collapse of the system of canal improvements it 
was probably fortunate that events took the 
course indicated, but in giving up the work he 
liked and which offered far better financial re¬ 
turns than anything then in sight, rather than 
submit to what he regarded as an injustice, he 
illustrated a trait that often bore fruit in later 
life. 

Resuming teaching in the fall and winter, first 
near his home and later in Milton, he followed the 
advice of Dr. Jacob Abbott whose book on Peda¬ 
gogy he had just read in essaying the policy of 
government without the rod. The innovation met 

s 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


47 


with marked success in the former school, but in 
Milton the boys gave “such strong proof of innate 
depravity” that he reluctantly abandoned “the 
rose-water, Jacob Abbott policy,” and more than 
once spoke with regret of the severity with which 
he flogged several of his Milton scholars. 4 

The time not devoted to teaching was spent at 
home, where he helped with the farming, he and 
his brother Isaac reading together, and also 
memorizing a great deal of poetry. The list of 
books thus enjoyed included the histories of Gib¬ 
bon, Hume and Goldsmith, Plutarch's Lives, the 
English poets, Locke’s Essays, Abercrombie on 
The Intellectual Powers, Watts on The Mind, 
Combe’s Constitution of Man, Dr. Spurzheim’s 
works on Phrenology and Education, Paine’s 
political works, Godwin’s Political Justice, 
Sterne’s and Fielding’s novels, Don Quixote, 
Ossian’s Poems, etc. Pie also continued the study 
of mathematics and took up rhetoric and astrono¬ 
my. All this sounds as if life were an arduous 
business, but it doubtless seemed quite the reverse 
to the eager young seeker after knowledge to 
whom every day opened up new and alluring 
vistas. 

After two years of alternate teaching and farm 
work, Julian set out on April 1, 1839 in company 
with some Wayne County friends on a visit to 
eastern Iowa where several of their former neigh- 

4. “I lost my temper and was in the wrong; and I now see that 
I ought to have sought them out in later years and offered them any 
reparation or atonement in my power.” Unpublished Autobiography. 


48 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

bors had recently settled. The journey was 
chiefly by stage and afforded an opportunity to 
cogitate about the future as well as see the coun¬ 
try. Teaching was not exactly to his liking: 
perhaps he would find employment as a surveyor, 
or else purchase land in “the west” (his savings, 
which he carried with him, were sufficient for 
this) and settle down as a farmer after all. His 
course was by no means clear before him, and 
grew steadily less so during the weeks spent in 
New Madison, Burlington, and other Iowa towns. 
He therefore decided to go up the Mississippi 
River to Mercer County, Illinois, where Dr. 
Thomas Willetts whom he had known intimately 
in Milton, Wayne County, resided. It was during 
his stay under this hospitable roof that his 
anxiety as to a career reached an acute stage, and 
after much mental wrestling, during which 
Carlyle’s maxim, “Know what thou canst do,” 
seemed to mock his indecision and helplessness, 
he decided to lay his case before Dr. Willetts. 
There had all along been moments when he 
seemed to feel an indefinable consciousness of 
power, when like John Foster he had “a painful 
sense of an awkward but entire individuality,” 
but these were invariably followed by a deadening 
unbelief in himself, which was at once his pre¬ 
vailing mood and worst enemy. Dr. Willetts 
listened sympathetically, and without a moment’s 
hesitation advised him to study law. This was a 
totally new idea, as surprising as it was flatter¬ 
ing, for he had not supposed that any person could 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


49 


entertain so favorable an opinion of his capacity. 5 
Dr. Willetts went on to say that the only draw¬ 
back was self-distrust, which he could overcome 
if he would, and urged him to take up the new 
study at once. Accordingly a copy of Blackstone’s 
Commentaries was procured, which he read while 
he taught a term of school near New Boston, hav¬ 
ing his first love affair at the same time. The 
object of his affection was an English girl, 
Rachel Crapnel, who seemed to him an angel of 
light and loveliness and to whom he would have 
proposed marriage but for the fact that he lacked 
the necessary courage. He kept his legal study a 
secret from all but one or two friends, and 
blushed at the sheet on which he wrote to his 
brother Isaac that he was reading Blackstone, in¬ 
forming him that he had no idea of being a 
lawyer, but that he thought it would be as useful 
to him as any other general reading. 

Another incident of his sojourn in Illinois is 
interesting in the light of present medical prac¬ 
tice. Dr. Willetts was one of the leading physi¬ 
cians of what was called “the western country” 
and a man whose personality and attainments 
commanded the respect and confidence of all who 
knew him. Moreover he took a genuine interest 
in young men, many of whom looked up to him 
as counsellor and guide. Having seen Julian em¬ 
barked on the study of law, the Doctor next ad- 

5. Great dignity and prestige attached to the so-called ‘learned 
professions’, the lawyer, the doctor and the clergyman being regarded 
as in a manner set off from the rest of the community. 


4—24142 


50 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

vised bleeding, although no physical malady was 
in evidence, but inasmuch as he tipped the scales 
at two hundred and twenty-five pounds, there was 
evidently an excess of blood. Leeches were ac¬ 
cordingly applied, a^ 1 the young student was 
relieved of two quarts of good red blood, the re¬ 
sult being an exceeding weakness accompanied by 
a happy consciousness of having thus warded off 
serious trouble. 

On his return to Indiana, whither home-sick¬ 
ness drove him the following spring, he again 
taught school while continuing the reading of law 
under the guidance of his cousin, John S. New¬ 
man, a leading member of the Centerville bar, 
and was duly licensed to practice in October, 
1840, at the age of twenty-three years. He had 
an honorable ambition socially and in a business 
way, and was striving manfully to overcome the 
bashfulness that hindered him by taking part in 
the meetings of the Rustic Club at the district 
school near his home, and of the Centerville Sci¬ 
entific and Literary Association, seizing also 
every opportunity to listen to and converse with 
the notable men of the village in whose presence 
he did his best to feel at home. 

This year likewise marked his first appearance 
as a contributor to the press, two articles of his 
being printed in The Philomath Encyclopedia, a 
nondescript monthly edited by the Rev. Jonathan 
Kidwell, the Universalist preacher referred to in 
the preceding chapter. 6 One of these was a de- 


6. Ante, p. 41. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


51 


fence of Thomas Paine against a savage attack by 
the Cincinnati Gazette, and the other was entitled 
‘Truth Against Orthodoxy.” These were fol¬ 
lowed by three other articles in the succeeding 
year, the subjects being “Skepticism and Infidel¬ 
ity,” “Causes of Skepticism and Irreligion” and 
“Methodist Sermons,” which he afterwards de¬ 
clared possessed little value beyond the mental 
training they afforded, but which plainly showed 
his taste for religious thinking and the same in¬ 
dependent spirit that was later to manifest itself 
in politics. 

His radical and destructive theological reading, 
however, presently became wearisome and unsat¬ 
isfactory, and so, on the advice of Prof. Hoshour, 
who continued to be a valued mentor, he entered 
upon a very different course. He now began to 
read such books as Watson’s Apology For the 
Bible, Simpson’s Plea For Religion, Nelson on In¬ 
fidelity, Faber on Infidelity, Leslie’s Short Method 
With the Deists, and Butler’s Analogy, the very 
names of which suggest a period remote and 
archaic, while they show what ponderous topics 
were sometimes included in the curriculum of a 
Hoosier youth of the last century. 

In his first chapter of Political Recollections 
Julian has given an account of his experience in 
the Harrison campaign of 1840, when he called 
himself a Whig, not because he had any real 
knowledge of politics but because his father had 
belonged to that party and because he remem¬ 
bered his brother John’s admiration for Henry 


52 


INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Clay. He naively declares too that he was “not 
the only political lunatic who enlisted in the hard 
cider campaign,” which he fitly characterizes as 
a great national frolic rather than a struggle in 
behalf of reform and into the spirit of which he 
threw himself with all the ardor of his twenty- 
three years. In company with a number of jolly 
fellows he rode one hundred and fifty miles on 
horseback through the mud to the great meeting 
at Tippecanoe Battleground on May 29th and 
30th, where they slept on the ground two nights, 
drank a considerable quantity of hard cider and 
had a rollicking good time. He also visited his 
father’s grave 7 and the cabin in which he died, 
noting with interest how few changes had taken 
place in the neighborhood. On September 10th, 
he was one of another horse company which at¬ 
tended the mass meeting at Dayton, Ohio, where 
he heard Gen. Harrison speak, and it was while 
listening to this first great man he had ever be¬ 
held, with an awe such as he said he never after¬ 
wards felt for any mortal, that he had the 
misfortune to be relieved of his pocketbook. 

In November, 1840, he entered upon the.prac¬ 
tice of law, first in Newcastle for six months, 
teaching in the County Seminary there “as a sort 
of flank movement,” (for he distrusted his ability 
at the bar) and later in Greenfield, Hancock 
County, for two years. It was in the latter 

7. On what is now known as the Gay farm, about ten miles west 
and two miles south of LaFayette. The fence and headstone are still 
(1923) in a good state of preservation. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


53 


town that he organized “The Dark Lyceum,” a 
debating society whose proceedings were always 
conducted with lights out, and which had but two 
members, a young lawyer named George Pattison 
and himself. 8 The only officer was a Premier, 
whose duty it was to preside, preserve order, and 
decide disputed questions, the members occupying 
this position by turns. His friendship with Pat¬ 
tison, who read law with him, was one of those 
fortunate relationships that mold character and 
sweeten life. They were almost constantly to¬ 
gether, basking before the fire at Nick Pumphrey’s 
tavern, rambling through the woods, or un¬ 
tangling legal puzzles in the office. All sorts of 
questions were debated in the Dark Lyceum, and 
so valuable did Julian consider the discipline thus 
afforded that on returning to Centerville he 
revived the institution under the name of “The 
Dark Lyceum of Centerville.” The following ac¬ 
count of this locally famous organization was 
given by him many years later and throws light 
on the simple yet earnest life of the period: 

“Soon after my settlement here (Centerville) I 
gathered about me from the young men of the 
town a few congenial and attached friends who 
joined me in organizing ‘The Dark Lyceum of 
Centerville/ They were N. C. McCullough, D. 
W. Reed, and C. J. Woods. Desiring to consult 
the ornamental as well as the useful in this enter¬ 
prise, we created three offices in addition to that 

8. Pattison later moved to Carroll County, Missouri, where he 
served for many years as judge of the Probate Court. 


54 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

of Premier, namely, Prelate, Inductor and 
Sponsor, the duties of which were particularly 
defined. The origin of our secret order, as we 
now styled it, was traced back to Demosthenes, 
who made it the instrument of his wonderful 
triumphs in oratory; and its history was solemnly 
set forth by the Premier on the initiation of a 
candidate. We allowed the public to know enough 
of our proceedings to excite curiosity, while the 
exclusiveness of the body awakened some opposi¬ 
tion and jealousy among outsiders. Prompted by 
the love of fun with which we sought to spice our 
proceedings, I composed the following hymn 
which was always sung at the opening of the 
meetings, to the tune of Bruce's Address: [The 
first of the five stanzas is sufficient to show the 
quality of this composition.] 

Here choice and kindred spirits meet 
To mingle in communion sweet, 

Here truth and friendship guide our feet, 

And cheer us on our way. 

“But it must not be supposed that the Lyceum 
gave itself up to mere sport and trifles. Its con¬ 
trolling purpose was intellectual improvement, 
and the discussions were earnest, always credit¬ 
able and sometimes able. From time to time the 
membership was increased by the admission of 
Thomas Dill, J. E. Burbank, R. N. Hudson, J. P. 
Siddall, 0. P. Morton and others, and I feel sure 
that every surviving member would acknowledge 
his indebtedness to it for valuable training and 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


55 


real improvement in the art of public speaking. 
Through varying fortunes and subject to some 
interruptions, the organization continued its 
work until early in the year 1848, when it was 
dissolved by radical differences of opinion among 
its members respecting the slavery question, 
which had found its way to the front as a subject 
of debate.” 9 

While residing in Greenfield, Julian after an 
examination, was admitted to practice before the 
Supreme Court of the State. The Judges at that 
time were Isaac Blackford, Charles Dewey and 
Jeremiah Sullivan, all men of commanding figure, 
whose appearance as they strode into the court¬ 
room created quite as much terror among the ten 
aspirants as did the forty formidable written 
questions which they propounded. There was lit¬ 
tle society in Greenfield at that time that inter¬ 
ested him, but he was doing a fairly good business 
and would probably have made it his permanent 
home but for the conduct of one Thomas J. Wal¬ 
pole, the leading lawyer of the town, who on his 
return from serving a term as State Senator 
seems studiously and unremittingly to have 
persecuted the young attorney whose sole offense 
was that he was prospering and, inferentially, 
poaching on Walpole's domain. Julian defended 
himself, but the ugly warfare presently disgusted 
him and he decided to accept his brother Jacob’s 
offer of a partnership in Centerville in May, 1843. 


9. Unpublished Autobiography. 


56 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


This village, the second capital of Wayne Coun¬ 
ty 10 was then in its hey-day, and perhaps a more 
favorable location for an aspiring young barrister 
could not have been found in the State. The lead¬ 
ing lawyers were James Rariden, John S. New¬ 
man, (both afterwards members of the Constitu¬ 
tional Convention of 1851) Charles S. Test and 
Martin M. Ray, all men of ability, and litigation 
was plentiful. The town was prosperous in a 
business way. There was an excellent county 
Seminary, a literary society brought noted lec¬ 
turers in the winter, there were several churches, 
well attended, the Temperance reform had begun 
to forge to the front, and an exceptionally inter¬ 
esting society of young men and women added 
much to the cultural tone of the community. 11 As 
the junior partner in the firm of ‘Julian and 
Julian/ George’s chief employment at first was in 
probate business and the trial of cases before jus¬ 
tices of the peace. Jacob liked chancery cases, 
for which his younger brother had no taste, the 

10. The first seat of justice of Wayne County was Salisbury, a 
little east and south of Centerville. This was from 1811 to 1816. 
Then for thirty-six years Centerville was the county-seat, the finally 
successful effort to remove it to Richmond occasioning one of the 
fiercest county-seat contests known in Indiana history. 

11. A quaint reminder of the social activities of Centerville in 
1843 is a neatly printed invitation in which “the company of Mr. 
Alexander Finch (afterwards the brother-in-law of Mr. Julian) is 
respectfully requested at a Social Party to be given at the Mansion 
House in Centerville on Monday Evening, [December] 25th instant, at 
Four O’clock”. The names appended as “managers” in addition to Mr. 
Julian are J. G. Talbott, C. N. Elmer, L. Noble, J. Jemison, C. J. 
Woods, E. J. Bonine, J. H. William, J. E. Burbank and I. A. Hannah, 
Julian Collection. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


57 


latter decidedly preferring actions, either civil or 
criminal, in which a jury was demanded. The 
first of these in which he took part after his re¬ 
turn to Centerville was an action of slander 
brought by Collins S. Stevens against James 
Jones, an old Irishman who had not sufficiently 
bridled his tongue and who was familiarly styled 
“Jemmy Jones.” “I was for the plaintiff,” said 
Julian, “and was obliged to make the opening 
speech, and I well remember what I suffered from 
the dread of doing this in the presence of the old 
lawyers and the curious crowd of acquaintances 
who had come to hear me. But I succeeded sur¬ 
prisingly to myself and I believe to everybody 
else, and when I sat down, John Finley, 12 our well 
known Hoosier poet, then clerk of the court, 
handed me the following: 

“Your maiden speech I call 0. K., 

And so the jury thought it; 

Their countenances seemed to say 
‘Old Jemmy Jones has caught it.* ” 13 

This was not literally his first speech in court, 
for he had tried cases both in Greenfield and 
Newcastle. The latter village was the scene of 
his earliest venture in this line, the action being 
before Green T. Simpson, a country Justice of the 

12. John Finley, author of The Hoosier’s Nest, born in Browns- 

burg, Rockingham County Virginia, Jan. 11, 1797, and died in 

Richmond, Indiana, December 23, 1866. Among other poems which 
he wrote are “The Clock,” “Advertisement for a Wife,” and “The Last 
of the Family”. 

13. Unpublished Autobiography. 


58 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

Peace, with N. W. Miner of Dublin as the opposing 
counsel. Both the lawyers were panic stricken, 
and the recollection of the affair caused consider¬ 
able amusement in later life. “The justice was a 
good-natured old farmer/’ said Julian, “who knew 
less law than either of us, and whose judgment of 
our rhetoric was quite indifferent. The amount 
involved was only a few dollars, and in no event 
could there be the least danger of any serious 
consequences to body or soul. And yet, in open¬ 
ing the case and making our speeches we were 
almost convulsed with excitement. I remember 
trying to keep cool and hating myself for being 
so affected, but there was no remedy for my 
affliction.” 14 

He was the orator of the occasion at an all-day 
celebration of the Fourth of July following, his 
speech being described as “a most happy effort”. 15 

Julian’s first political speech was delivered be¬ 
fore the Clay Club in the Centerville Court House 
early in the campaign of 1844 and was followed 
by numerous calls to speak in other parts of the 
county. Although he had as yet given little seri¬ 
ous thought to the questions that then divided the 
parties, his legal studies and social affiliations had 
tended to keep him in alliance with the Whigs. 
His faith in the theory of protection, however, had 
been greatly weakened by reading Say’s Political 
Economy, while the land policy of the Whigs ap- 

14. Ibid. 

15. Wayne County Record, July 10, 1844. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


59 


pealed to him as little as did their advocacy of a 
national bank. But the plan of annexing Texas 
for the purpose of extending the area of slavery 
met with his decided opposition, and in the cam¬ 
paign of 1844 in behalf of the Whig candidates 
he used much the same line of reasoning that led 
him to desert the party four years later. It is 
doubtful if people today take their politics as seri¬ 
ously as they did in 1844, when the defeat of Clay 
was so severe a trial that it literally prostrated 
large numbers of his admiring followers. “It 
seemed to me an irretrievable national calamity,” 
said Julian, “and I so brooded over it that for near¬ 
ly a week sleep was impossible. I felt indignant at 
the Birney men, ignorantly believing that they 
elected Polk. If Clay had not trimmed in the 
canvass, and if he had not made his unfortunate 
Mendenhall speech in 1842, 10 he might have won 
the long coveted prize of the presidency, but as 
the champion of compromise he proved himself 
unfit for it, and unworthy of that idolatry of de¬ 
votion with which his friends espoused his 
cause.” 17 

In May, 1845, occurred Julian’s marriage to 
Anne Elizabeth Finch of Centerville, only daugh¬ 
ter of Cyrus Finch, an able lawyer of eastern In¬ 
diana who had been cut off in early life by tuber- 

16. On the occasion of Clay’s visit to Richmond in 1842 a delega¬ 
tion of Quakers headed by Hiram Mendenhall besought him to free his 
slaves. Clay’s somewhat heated reply to his petitioners lost him many 
votes in the ensunig presidential election. 

17. Julian’s Autobiography. 


60 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

culosis. The following wedding notice is from 
The Wayne County Record , a Centerville news¬ 
paper published by Samuel C. Meredith, 18 John 
Finley being the author of the verses: 

MARRIED—On Tuesday the 13th inst., 
by Elder S. K. Hoshour, GEORGE W. 
Julian Esq., to Miss Anne E. Finch, 
both of Centerville. 

We received no cake, but by request 
publish the following lines written for 
the occasion:— 

Life hath its joys as well as sorrows, 

A bliss to balance every pain; 

Our dark todays bring bright tomorrows, 

A checkered scene of loss and gain. 

But of all joys to life pertaining, 

The nonpareil of every sweet 
Is found in Hymen’s silken chaining, 

When youth and love in rapture meet. 

Just below appears the notice of another union, 
that of Oliver P. Morton Esq. and Lucinda Maria 
Burbank, which occurred two days later, the 
same bride’s maid, Miss Sarah Jane Noble, serv¬ 
ing at both functions. 

Mrs. Julian was only eighteen at the time of 
her marriage, and all accounts agree that she was 
beautiful, while her singularly quick perceptions, 
impulsiveness and enthusiasm were in marked 
contrast with her husband’s sedate manner and 
reflective habits. They set up their household 


18. Grandfather of Meredith Nicholson. 







Julian at the age of twenty-eight, while serving in the 
Indiana General Assembly, session of 1845 





GEORGE W. JULIAN 


61 


gods in a one-story brick residence, still stand¬ 
ing, a little south of the Methodist church in 
Centerville, where during the first year their total 
expenses amounted to a trifle over two hundred 
dollars. “The furniture and entire appointments 
were exceedingly plain,” wrote Julian many years 
later, “and yet we were perfectly happy,” which 
perhaps is only another way of saying, “The 
Kingdom of Heaven is within.” Mrs. Julian had 
completed the course at the County Seminary, the 
best educational institution then accessible, and 
like her husband was naturally studious. One 
contemplates with satisfaction the picture of the 
young husband sharing the domestic tasks on re¬ 
turning from his office, so as the more speedily to 
enter upon their joint reading, and also their co¬ 
operation in the care of the little son who came 
within a twelvemonth to complete their joy. 19 

In August following his marriage Julian was 
elected as a Whig to the State Legislature, where 
he took a firm stand in favor of the Butler Bill, 
which was opposed by his Whig brethren, and 
the abolition of capital punishment, and against 
the shameful policy of Legislative divorces. 
Among the most active of the younger members, 
he was not content with simply expressing his 
convictions in the Legislative hall, but sent fre¬ 
quent communications to the newspapers for the 

19. George W. and Anne E. Julian were the parents of three chil¬ 
dren—Edward Channing, b. April 15, 1846, d. March 2, 1865; Louis 
Henry, b. Jan. 27, 1854, d. Oct. 16, 1863 ; and Frederick Hoover, b. 
Feb. 14, 1856, d. Sept. 30, 1911. 


62 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


purpose of educating and molding public opinion. 
It is a curious fact that until the adoption of the 
Constitution of 1851 the granting of divorces by 
the General Assembly was common, and the prac¬ 
tice had reached such extraordinary proportions 
and was carried on in so haphazard a manner as 
to lead to serious misgivings in the interest of 
public morals. In an article in The Indiana State 
Journal of December 23, 1845, Julian care¬ 
fully set forth the reasons for his opposition, 
over the signature “A Lobby Member.” In the 
first place he held that the power to grant divorces 
was plainly vested by the Revised Statutes in the 
Judiciary alone, and that the legislative body by 
its action was exercising a function in direct vio¬ 
lation of the constitution. But even admitting for 
the sake of the argument that the Legislature was 
not restrained by any constitutional prohibition, 
he insisted that public policy was utterly opposed 
to the present practice of granting divorces with¬ 
out inquiry as to facts. The members of the 
General Assembly acting under oath faithfully 
to discharge their duties, were turning that oath 
into derision by making a legislative frolic of that 
which ought to be a very serious and solemn busi¬ 
ness. “Thus the institution of marriage is dese¬ 
crated and scoffed at by a set of apparently un¬ 
reflecting and unconscientious politicians whose 
moral perceptions can only be quickened by the 
well applied rod of their constituents.” 20 

\ 

20. Indiana State Journal, December 23, 1845. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


63 


The measure known as the Butler Bill was fully 
discussed by him in the Wayne County Record of 
February 11, 1846, over his own signature. This 
bill, which took its name from Charles Butler of 
New York, the agent of English bondholders, 
provided for the satisfaction of one half of 
the State’s eleven-million-dollar indebtedness by 
transferring to these bondholders in trust the 
Wabash and Erie Canal with its lands and reve¬ 
nues, and the payment of the interest on the other 
half by taxation. In view of the financial condi¬ 
tion of the State at the time, its passage was of 
vital moment, and probably saved Indiana from 
the shame of repudiation; but it became a party is¬ 
sue and for giving it his support Julian was se¬ 
verely censured by Whig friends and organs. He 
however always regarded this vote with satisfac¬ 
tion as a conscientious endeavor to solve a vexa¬ 
tious problem as well as an early exhibition of inde¬ 
pendence, and his action was destined to meet 
with a gratifying reward three years later in his 
first race for Congress. 

His service in the General Assembly was help¬ 
ful in several ways. For the first time he came 
in contact with men of varying talents from other 
parts of the state, and by measuring himself with 
them he must have been able the better to gauge 
his own abilities. Among his associates were 
Joseph Morrow, 21 one of his former teachers, Den- 

21 . Born in North Carolina in 1799, he came to Wayne County 
when a boy and served in the State Legislature in 1838, 1839, 1845, 
1846, 1850 and 1851. 


64 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


nis Pennington, 22 then past seventy, who had come 
to Indiana Territory in 1802, and to whom must 
have attached a peculiar interest from the fact 
that he had served in the Legislature with Julian’s 
father in 1822; Reuben A. Riley, destined to be 
the father of Indiana’s favorite poet; Conrad 
Baker, afterwards governor of the State, and 
Joseph Lane, who later represented Oregon in the 
United States Senate and became a candidate for 
Vice-President on the ticket with Breckenridge in 
1860. James Whitcomb, an able and adroit party 
leader, was then Democratic Governor of Indiana, 
and was elected United States Senator a few years 
later. The Lieutenant Governor was Jesse D. 
Bright, then at the threshold of his public life, 
and it was this Legislature which elected him for 
the first time to the United States Senate and 
launched him upon his remarkable career as the 
autocrat of his party in the State. Julian enjoyed 
some of the social functions of the capital, form¬ 
ing friendships that lasted through life. He 
learned something of parliamentary procedure in 
a larger assembly than the Dark Lyceum and the 
literary and debating societies of his own village, 
and he was led to consider questions to which he 

22. Dennis Pennington, born in Virginia, 1776. Came to Ken¬ 
tucky with Henry Clay in 1797. Moved to Corydon, Harrison County, 
Indiana. Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives in 1811 and 
1815 and it is said that he sat in more sessions of the Legislature than 
any other man in the history of the State. Was a member of the 
first Constitutional convention of 1816 and helped build the old Capitol 
at Corydon. Illiterate but of excellent natural powers. Matilda 
Gresham, Life of W. Q. Gresham, Vol. I, p. 13. 



GEORGE W. JULIAN 65 

had hitherto given little thought. Also, and this 
is important, his love of home and of domestic 
life was heightened by the enforced absence. 

On returning to Centerville he continued read¬ 
ing, with his wife, the works of Dr. William El¬ 
lery Channing, whose sermon at the ordination of 
Jared Sparks which had accidentally fallen in his 
way the preceding summer, marked an epoch in 
his spiritual development and had a decided effect 
on his political views; also such anti-slavery 
papers and pamphlets as he could procure; and 
the works of Thomas Carlyle. Certain passages 
of Carlyle’s about justice, truth and human rights 
so fixed themselves in his consciousness that they 
became “trumpet-calls to battle against oppres¬ 
sion and inequality, whether taking the undis¬ 
guised form of chattel slavery, or that organized 
cupidity which makes labor the helpless drudge 
of capital, or that system of agricultural serfdom 
which rests upon the unrestricted monopoly of 
the soil.” There is no doubt that these books 
were timely helps in the unfolding of his moral 
nature, a process still further stimulated by the 
state of public affairs at that time. “Cheap post¬ 
age for the people” was becoming a rallying cry 
and taking its rank as a new question. The land 
policy of the Whigs, which looked to the sale of 
the public domain as a source of revenue, was 
seriously challenged by the issue of land reform, 
which proposed to set apart the public lands for 
free homes for the poor and to derive revenue 


5—24142 


66 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


from their productive wealth. The prohibition of 
slavery in our national territories was another 
much discussed subject, destined soon to over¬ 
shadow all others. It was a period fraught with 
tremendous significance, the full import of which 
could not then be clearly apprehended, and this 
slowly developing young man of open mind and 
genuinely democratic instincts was unconsciously 
preparing to play an honorable part in more than 
one engagement of the future. 

When a Methodist minister named Kavanaugh 
lectured in Centerville in behalf of ‘Colonization’ 
in the winter of 1845-6, declaring that the people 
of the free States had “nothing to do with slav¬ 
ery” and that they ought to “worship God and 
mind their own business,” Julian replied to him 
in two decidedly anti-slavery articles which ap¬ 
peared in the Centerville News-Letter 23 and were 
copied into other papers, and which, reinforced 
by an article on the Black Laws of the State in 
The Wayne County Record, first directed against 
him the charge of Abolitionism. He however still 
considered himself a Whig in spite of that party’s 
recreancy on certain vital issues; for men do not 
lightly desert the political standard under which 
they have served, and he earnestly hoped that with 

23. A literary paper started in Centerville in 1846 by C. B. Bent¬ 
ley, with whom was afterwards associated Hampden G. Finch, brother- 
in-law of Mr. Julian. Young’s History of Wayne County, p. 93. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


67 


such leadership as that of Adams 24 and Giddings, 25 
the old organization might yet be conducted into 
right channels. That the soil was being prepared 
for his final break with Whiggery two years later 
is clearly indicated in an editorial contributed 
by him to the News-Letter of June 6, 1846, en¬ 
titled “The Age We Live In,” which is a warning 
against yielding the individual conscience and 
judgment too much to the prevailing and accepted 
opinion of the time, and a plea for independent 
thought and action. 

In the spring of 1847 Julian sought the Whig 
nomination as State Senator for Wayne County 
in place of David P. Holloway, 26 who in the late 
Legislature had strongly opposed the Butler Bill 
and had not ceased to condemn, through his organ, 
The Richinond Palladium, Julian’s support of that 
measure. The latter defended himself in a series 
of articles in The Wayne County Record over the 
signature “Caveat,” which were widely copied and 
constitute one of the best contemporary accounts 
of that much discussed measure. Holloway was 
renominated after a fierce canvass, the chief con¬ 
tributing causes being Julian’s apostacy on the 

24. Charles Francis Adams, Free Soil candidate for vice president 
in 1848. Ambassador to England 1861-1868. 

25. Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio, for twenty-one ■«.;: a leading 
anti-slavery Representative in Congress, 1838-1859. 

26. Editor the Richmond Palladium. 



68 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

Butler Bill and the charge of Abolitionism indus¬ 
triously circulated, which assuredly had some 
foundation not only in his News-Letter articles of 
the previous year, but in his public avowal that 
he would never vote for another slaveholder or 
military chieftain for the presidency. His defeat 
for this nomination was no doubt fortunate, as 
it naturally deepened his anti-slavery convictions 
and still further opened the way for his final 
separation from the Whigs in the following year. 


CHAPTER III 


Religious Perplexities — Politics—Buffalo Conven¬ 
tion—Campaign of 18^8 — Persecution — Dis¬ 
solution of Law Partnership—Letters to 

Giddings. 

In June, 1847 the Julians moved into a new 
brick house on Main Street, Centerville, the con¬ 
struction of which had been begun the previous 
autumn, a modest dwelling, but more pretentious 
than the one where they had spent the first two 
years of their married life. They continued their 
miscellaneous reading, enjoying among other 
things Harriet Martineau’s Society in America, 
where for the first time they found woman suf- 
rage advocated. Julian records in his Journal his 
surprise at the idea and also at the fact that it 
had not before occurred to him, adding that the 
logic of democracy made its acceptance inevitable. 1 
He was thenceforth a consistent supporter of this 
reform, with which his name is honorably con¬ 
nected. They found time for poetry too, Lowell, 

1. “The subject was first brought to my attention in a brief 
chapter on ‘The Political Non-existence of Women’ in Miss Marti- 
neau’s book on Society In America which I read in 1847. She there 
pithily stated the substance of all that has since been said respecting 
the logic of woman’s I'ight to the ballot; and finding myself unable 
to answer it I accepted it. On recently referring to this chapter I 
find myself more impressed by its force than when I first read it.” 
History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. Ill, p. 552, by Elizabeth Cady Stan¬ 
ton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage. Quoted from George 
W. Julian. 


( 69 ) 


70 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Whittier and Wordsworth sounding helpful notes. 
It was their custom, as it had been the custom of 
Julian and his brother Isaac, to commit passages 
to memory, and among the lines traceable to this 
period that remained with him through life were 
The Happy Warrior and parts of the Ode To 
Duty. 

That his interest in religious questions had not 
abated is shown by some long letters in 1848 from 
Lucretia Mott 2 to whom he had written for counsel 
in regard to certain theological difficulties that 
had presented themselves. She and her husband 
had been among the first guests in the newly 
completed home, on the occasion of a western tour, 
and the friendship then begun was terminated only 
by death. It was Julian’s custom always to reach 
out towards those who knew more than he knew, 
and such were his sincerity and frankness that 
he was never rebuffed. His eager endeavors to 
satisfy his spiritual doubts and longings kept him 
on the anxious seat and occupied much of his 
leisure for years. The miracles and prophecies 
puzzled and perplexed him. How could he recon¬ 
cile the former with the unchangeableness of nat¬ 
ural laws? Some of the prophecies, he learned, 
were written after the events which they pre¬ 
tended to foretell. The Christian Examiner, 
which dealt with these questions, did not dispel 
but rather increased his doubts. So he laid his 

2. B. 1793 ; d. 1880. Minister of the Society of Friends or 
Quakers, also pioneer in the anti-slavery and Woman Suffrage move¬ 
ments. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


71 


troubles before Mrs. Mott who seemed to him the 
embodiment of spiritual insight and intelligent 
sympathy, and who now recommended Palfrey’s 
Lectures On The Old Testament , Norton’s books 
on the Genuineness Of The Gospels , De Wette’s 
Introduction To The Old Testament translated by 
Theodore Parker, and other works. She sent him 
Parker’s famous sermon on “The Transient and 
Permanent in Christianity”, the Life of Joseph 
Blanco White and other volumes prized both for 
their helpfulness and because of his regard for 
the donor. 

Mrs. Mott also laid his case before the Rev. 
William Henry Furness, 3 whose earnest advice 
she repeated: “If your young friend would read 
the prophecies in the Quaker spirit and philos¬ 
ophy, he would see that those men were the fiery 
reformers of their day, men who regarded every 
clear intuition of their consciences as a direct 
word from the Lord, . . . and that their in¬ 

spiration was the same in kind with the inspira¬ 
tion of all truth and goodness and wisdom.” And 
the saintly Quaker thus set forth her own views 
as to the inspiration of the Bible: “Now that 
skepticism of the theology of the schools has be¬ 
come somewhat a duty, free-thinkers may go to 
the other extreme and fail to award to the scrip¬ 
tures all the beautiful and blessed instruction they 
contain. I have for years accustomed myself to 
read and examine them as nearly as I would any 

3. B. 1802 ; d. 1896. For fifty years pastor of the First Unitarian 
Church, Philadelphia. Actively engaged in the anti-slavery cause. 


72 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

other book as early education and veneration 
would permit. I have now no difficulty in decid¬ 
ing upon the human and ignorant origin of such 
facts as conflict with the known and eternal laws 
of Deity in the physical creation, be the claim to 
the miraculous ever so high and the assumption 
of the prophetic and God-inspired ever so strong. 
Still less, if possible, do I waver when any viola¬ 
tion of the divine and eternal law of right, such 
as murder in any of its forms, slavery in any of 
its degrees, and priest-craft in its various shapes, 
as palmed upon the religious world, is declared to 
be THUS SAITH THE LORD.” 4 

But professional and other responsibilities 
presently became so absorbing that the reading 
and study were necessarily abridged. Earnest 
and persevering as were Julian’s theological in¬ 
vestigations, he yet did not feel entirely satisfied 
with the results, and doubts continued to harass 
and perplex him until he finally found himself 
compelled, in order to secure intellectual peace, to 
take his stand with the radical wing of the Uni¬ 
tarian body in demanding absolute freedom of 
thought. “My experience”, said he, “during the 
years I was struggling to be satisfied with my 
semi-orthodox religion strikingly resembled that 
of Harriet Martineau as stated in her charming 
Autobiography; but I did not follow her into 
Positivism and the denial of a future life. I did 
not abjure religion altogether because one of its 

4. Letter of Mrs. Mott dated “11th mo. 14th 1848”. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


73 


accepted foundations gave way; while in facing 
the duties and trials of life I gradually found 
strength and tranquility of mind. And when I 
espoused the anti-slavery cause and unselfishly 
gave my whole heart to its service, the doctrinal 
doubts and anxieties that had troubled me seemed 
unworthy of one who loved his neighbor and be¬ 
lieved in the brotherhood of man.” 5 

During the fall and winter of 1847-8 the ap¬ 
proaching presidential struggle was the engross¬ 
ing topic of discussion throughout the country. 
Old party issues were becoming subordinated to 
the question of slavery, which persistently forced 
itself to the front and challenged attention. 
While the Southern leaders entertained no hope 
of establishing their peculiar institution in Ore¬ 
gon, they resisted the application to that Terri¬ 
tory of the provisions of The Ordinance of 1787 
without a public legal recognition of the validity 
of slavery south of 36° and 30' in the recent 
Mexican cessions, including part of California. 
The obvious danger of further slavery extension 
had awakened an unprecedented interest in the 
subject among the people of the free States. The 
Wilmot Proviso, or the exclusion of slavery from 
all territory to be acquired from Mexico, had be¬ 
come a great national issue that threatened the 
disruption of both the old parties, each of which 
was trying to ignore it in the interest of harmony 
and ascendancy. In the North the parties were 


5. Unpublished Autobiography. 


74 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

divided on the question, while in the South they 
were perfectly agreed. General Lewis Cass, who 
eagerly sought the Democratic nomination for the 
presidency, was seeking to pacify the southern 
wing of his party by the doctrine of non-interven¬ 
tion with slavery in the Territories, while General 
Zachary Taylor was doing his best to secure the 
Whig nomination by extensive letter writing in 
which he dodged the issue, while he was sup¬ 
ported by northern and southern friends on ex¬ 
actly opposite grounds. 

In the spring of 1848 Julian recorded in his 
Journal his anxiety as to the situation and his de¬ 
termination to remain aloof from political excite¬ 
ment and to attend strictly to business. 6 Only 
that Muse who is said to smile aloft, “surveying 
our acts from their well-springs”, could have 
known the futility of this resolve. Inclination 
and interest alike prompted avoidance of the com¬ 
ing political strife, and especially a quarrel with 
his party, in whose ranks were nearly all the 
clients of ‘Julian and Julian', as well as their close 
personal friends. In view of these considera¬ 
tions, and of his fixed purpose not to vote for 
another slaveholder or military chieftain for 
president, he became more and more concerned 
lest Taylor should be named as the Whig stand¬ 
ard bearer. The argument of availability was 
irresistible, however, and “Old Rough-and-Ready” 
was nominated on June 7th at Philadelphia by 


6. Julian’s Journal, May 5, 1848. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


75 


that convention which Horace Greeley branded as 
“the slaughter house of Whig principles.” 

What was the young lawyer to do? On one 
side was his vow, perfectly coinciding with his 
clear sense of duty. On the other, were his bread 
and butter, the claim of party fealty, and the 
desire to live in peace with old and valued friends. 
He at first thought that he would withhold his 
vote from the presidential ticket while support¬ 
ing the other Whig nominees, but he soon found 
that this would not satisfy the party leaders, who 
openly threatened him with political and profes¬ 
sional ruin if he did not fall into line. His 
brother Jacob, impatient at his hesitation, urged 
submission as a duty to his family. “Sound the 
conscience and sink the family”, exclaims George 
Meredith, and does not Henrik Ibsen say that 
friends are an expensive luxury not because of 
what one does for them, but because of what out 
of consideration for their wishes, one refrains 
from doing? This is well illustrated by the pain¬ 
ful dilemma that Julian faced at this time, and he 
expressed the conviction long afterwards, that the 
choice he then made was one of the decisive acts 
of his life. 

The Free Soil movement of 1848 in which he 
presently found himself launched was one of the 
most picturesque as well as crucial in our coun¬ 
try’s history. With Cass and Taylor as the lead¬ 
ers of the old parties, the many northern Whigs 
and Democrats who were committed to the policy 


76 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

of the Wilmot Proviso were confronted with the 
necessity of a new organization which should 
voice their earnest convictions in regard to the 
freedom of the Territories, and it was generally 
felt that the Liberty party men who had sup¬ 
ported James G. Birney four years before would 
join with these and other elements provided a 
suitable candidate could be found. 

A national Free Soil convention was therefore 
called to meet in Buffalo on August 9th, and to 
this convention Julian went as a delegate. It is 
a significant fact that the delegates to this gather¬ 
ing were not chosen; they were men who went 
because they felt such a compelling interest that 
they could not remain away. During the early 
summer [1848] Julian had contributed, over the 
signature “A Northern Whig”, two forcible arti¬ 
cles to The National Era 7 on “The Claims of 
General Taylor”, in which he showed that these 
claims were based exclusively on military serv¬ 
ices, Taylor himself admitting that he had no 
opinions on any of the great questions that were 
considered vital to the prosperity of the country; 
that he was politically in the hands of the South, 
and the undoubted representative of southern as 
opposed to northern policy and interest; that it 
was high time to take a stand against slavery en¬ 
croachment and to maintain that stand regardless 
of any supposed consequences; and finally, that 

7. Anti-slavery newspaper established in Washington in 1844. Ed¬ 
ited by Dr. Gamaliel Bailey. Uncle Tom's Cabin made its first appear¬ 
ance in this paper. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


77 


party is not an end but a means, allegiance to 
which ought to cease when it fails to subserve the 
public good. 

“There is a moral in every political duty. I am 
willing to acknowledge the reasonable claims of 
party, but its claims must be reasonable. I re¬ 
pudiate the idea that my right to think and act 
for myself on political matters is utterly gone the 
moment my party shall issue its decree. To con¬ 
cede this would be to subscribe to a system of 
popery in politics, which makes every votary of 
it a slave. The idea of infallibility in any man or 
body of men has been abandoned in the Protestant 
Christian world, and ought to be abandoned in 
the political world. Shall I allow a set of men 
like myself to say to me, ‘You are a Whig and we 
have determined upon the course Whigs ought to 
pursue. . . . Our party will be ruined unless 

General Taylor is elected; and if you vote for him 
contrary to your own convictions of duty we here¬ 
by absolve you from allegiance to your country 
and your Creator, and will be answerable in your 
stead’. This is virtually the claim set up by the 
Whiggery of 1848. Ought men who claim to be 
free to submit to it? Shall men who have their 
eyes fixed upon duty, and who in pursuit of it 
have already abjured the tyranny of party, be 
driven back to its devil-worship by the cry of 
Abolitionism or any other cry? If through fear 
of public opinion or dread of popular obloquy, we 
fail to do our duty, can we escape the responsibil- 


78 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


ity by throwing it upon our party? Shall honest 
convictions be stifled through lack of courage to 
avow and stand by them, under whatever circum¬ 
stances, in the good hope of ultimate triumph? 
I submit these questions to the judgments and 
consciences of the Whigs of the North.” 8 

He also wrote numerous articles for The Free 
Territory Sentinel, an organ of the new party 
published at Centerville by Rawson Vaile, the 
first number of which appeared on August 28, 
1848. In view of Julian’s subsequent connection 
with public land matters it is interesting to note 
that one of these articles was in advocacy of a 
national homestead policy. 

He had hoped for the nomination of Charles 
\Francis Adams by the Free Soilers, and previous 
ito his arrival in Buffalo felt that he could not 
support Van Buren, because even though the lat- 
jter had opposed immediate annexation four years 
before and thus lost the Democratic nomination, 
he had nevertheless been too subservient to the 
slave power to render him a desirable leader for 
the new party. But when Van Buren consented 
to run as the candidate of so many elements, on 
an outspoken anti-slavery platform, the situation 
was altered and his own course was clear. 

The Buffalo convention afforded him his first 
contact with the vital forces of the anti-slavery 
movement, and his political principles were 
strengthened by listening to such men as Salmon 


8. Julian Scrap-Book, 



GEORGE W. JULIAN 


79 


P. Chase, Joshua R. Giddings, Charles Francis 
Adams, Preston King, Samuel Lewis and Joshua 
Leavitt, all of whom he had known by reputation 
and longed to meet. Soon after his return he was 
appointed an elector for Van Buren and Adams 
for the Fourth Congressional District of Indiana 
and prepared for an active campaign on the 
stump. Having procured from a Quaker friend, 
Jonathan Macy, “an old white horse fully seven¬ 
teen hands high, and rather thin in flesh”, 9 and 
having playfully christened the animal “Old 
Whitey” in honor of General Taylor’s war steed, 
he set out on his anti-slavery mission, speaking 
twice and frequently three times a day, for two 
or three hours at a time. His training in the 
Dark Lyceum was turned to good account, and his 
earnestness as well as absolute faith in the cause 
he advocated made him more than a match for 
any of the Whig leaders in the district. 

That was a period of bitter personalities, when 
vituperation, ridicule, and every weapon that 
partisan malice could suggest were the order of 
the day. Social ostracism was his portion, and 
friends of a lifetime became enemies. His twen¬ 
ty-one-year old wife was not spared; when she 
walked abroad she was conscious not only of the 
averted glance but occasionally of jeers, and dur¬ 
ing her husband’s absence she was more than once 
awakened at night by hoodlums, groaning and 
hooting beneath her window. It seems almost 


9. Political Recollections, p. 66. 






80 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


past belief that methods so outlandish could have 
been resorted to in Indiana almost within the 
memory of persons now living. The charge of 
Abolitionism was flung at Julian wherever he 
went, and it is well nigh impossible to appreciate 
the odium then attached to this term. He was 
called an “amalgamationist”, a “woolly-head”, 
the “apostle of disunion” and the “orator of free 
dirt”. He had the “negrophobia”, and it was in¬ 
sisted that he carried in his pocket a lock of the 
hair of Frederick Douglass, which it was said the 
latter had given him in Buffalo. At one time 
party feeling ran so high in Centerville that he 
was threatened with transportation out of the 
village on a rail, and he would not have been sur¬ 
prised had some such violence been attempted. 
But this was not all that he was called upon to 
endure. Under date of September 19th, occurs 
this entry in his Journal: 

“This day, because I would be a Barnburner 10 
J. B. Julian requested a dissolution of our part¬ 
nership, to which of course I promptly agreed. I 
am now thrown entirely upon my own resources, 
political and professional. I set out anew, with 
the loss of my standing in the great Whig party, 

10. The Barnburners were the Van Buren faction of the New 
York Democracy who opposed the extension of slavery into the Terri¬ 
tories, as distinguished from the Hunkers or followers of Gen. Polk. 
So called from an alleged eagerness for radical measures, in allusion 
to the Dutchman who burned his barn in order to rid it of rats. The 
appellations Conscience Whigs and Cotton Whigs had about the same 
significance as applied to the two wings of the other party. The names 
were also current outside of New York. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


81 


the alienation of a large body of political and per¬ 
sonal friends, including nearly all who under 
other circumstances would have been my best 
clients. Everything that party tyranny and ex¬ 
asperation can suggest will be done to prostrate 
me, by men who know that I am honest in my 
convictions and that I could have no sinister mo¬ 
tives. And now even a brother, chiming in with 
the popular clamor, sees proper to join in the gen¬ 
eral cry of ‘mad dog’. Well, be it so. The race 
is not always to the swift nor the battle to the 
strong. A better day will come; and believing 
this, and seeing it with the eye of faith, I shall not 
despair but thank God and take courage.” 11 

The Free Soil party failed to carry the vote of 
even one State, and Julian felt that Van Buren 
afterwards proved unworthy of the splendid sup¬ 
port accorded him in 1848. But this organized 
stand for the right and protest against the wrong 
met with gratifying results, the most important 
being that a rallying point was thus afforded for 
the friends of freedom during a chaotic period, 
presaging the great movement which elected 
Lincoln in 1860 and successfully prosecuted the 
Civil War. 

As for the effect of the campaign on Julian’s 
personal fortunes, to the eye of worldly prudence 
it must have seemed disastrous. By careful sav¬ 
ing he had probably laid by one hundred dollars, 
possibly a little more. He had a wife and child, 

11. Julian’s Journal, Sept. 19, 1848. 


6—24142 


82 


INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


and his only means of livelihood was the legal pro¬ 
fession, on which he had but fairly entered. Had 
Mrs. Julian been of a different fiber, or had there 
been any lack of understanding and sympathy be¬ 
tween them, great unhappiness must have re¬ 
sulted. That increased self-denial was entailed, 
and even hardship, goes without saying. But in 
meeting a great issue openly and honestly, un¬ 
biased by selfish considerations, their entire 
horizon had widened, so that things that had 
once seemed of large moment in their lives were 
dwarfed by comparison with other and more 
weighty concerns. 

The two following letters show how the slavery 
question was taking possession of him, and the 
thoroughness with which he was preparing to 
make war upon the institution; they also fore¬ 
shadow a long and beautiful friendship between 
two men who had many characteristics in com¬ 
mon : 

Centerville, Indiana, December 5, 1848. 
Hon. J. R. Giddings, Washington, D. C.: 

Dear Sir—Although an entire stranger to you I take 
the liberty of addressing you a few lines. I have long 
been your admirer and a reader of your speeches in Con¬ 
gress; and I owe to you, to John Quincy Adams and to 
Dr. Channing my emancipation from the thraldom of that 
truckling and time-serving policy which has so long char¬ 
acterized alike the politicians and the people of the North¬ 
ern States. Having been disappointed in my expectation of 
a personal introduction to you at Buffalo, I avail myself of 
this method of bringing myself into closer relations with 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


83 


you, so that hereafter, if agreeable to you, I may have the 
advantage of your friendship in advocating in this portion 
of Indiana the great Free Soil movement. 

By way of further introduction to the favors I am 
about to ask I ought perhaps to say that I was one of 
the Free Soil electors for this (Caleb B. Smith’s) Congres¬ 
sional district, having canvassed the whole district labori¬ 
ously and I think not without effect in the way of public 
speaking; and that in the ensuing Congressional campaign 
here it may devolve upon me again to take the field in 
defense of Free Soil. 

With a view to more extensive acquaintance with 
slavery in our government I need a good deal of informa¬ 
tion, mostly historical. I have lately come across a pam¬ 
phlet called Facts for the People , compiled in part from 
your writings, with which I am much pleased. If I had 
a number of copies for circulation much good could be done 
in opening the eyes of the blind. Where can the work be 
procured and what would be the cost by the hundred or in 
larger quantities? I should like the whole of your work 
entitled “The Rights of the Free States Subverted”. Per¬ 
haps you will forward me a copy. I hear Jay’s writings 
on slavery highly spoken of, and should like to have them 
if I knew the titles and where to direct for them. I also 
want your speeches delivered heretofore on the encroach¬ 
ments of the slave power. I should like some speech or 
document showing how northern men of both parties have 
generally voted on such questions as taxing the North to 
pay for run-away slaves, and whether the Whigs of the 
free States have been a consistent anti-slavery party. 
This is their boast here, and I wish to confront them with 
facts. 

Please let me hear from you in reply and oblige 
Very respectfully 
Your friend, 


GEO. W. JULIAN. 


84 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Centerville, Jan. 4, 1849. 

Hon. J. R. Giddings: 

Dear Sir—Your letter of Dec. 10, came duly to hand, and 
I have also received from you a number of documents for 
which I return my thanks. 

I have a few other favors to ask provided you can grant 
them without putting yourself to too much trouble, and I 
ask them only on this condition. Perhaps your recollec¬ 
tion will sufficiently serve without a reference to docu¬ 
ments. I should be glad to know how the northern Whigs 
voted on the bill in 1846 to appropriate money under the 
treaty with the Creek and Seminole Indians in 1845. Also 
how they voted on the bill brought forward at the last 
session of Congress to pay the executors of Benjamin 
Hodges for his run-away slaves; how they voted on the 
right of petition and the resolutions in 1842 for intro¬ 
ducing which you were censured; how they voted on the 
bill to pay for the Amistad negroes, and how they have 
uniformly voted on measures for abolishing slavery and 

the slave trade in the District. 
******* 

I should like to know whether the Wilmot Proviso ques¬ 
tion will probably be settled in any way this winter or 
not; also if there are any lights on the subject in Wash¬ 
ington, what Taylor will do if required to act on the ques¬ 
tion. 

Please write me and oblige 

Yours with great respect, 

GEO. W. JULIAN. 12 

12. Giddings Letters. Unfortunately Giddings’ replies to these let¬ 
ters can not be found. 


CHAPTER IV 


Elected to Thirty-first Congress—Washington in 

1850—Social Ostracism of Free Soilers — 
Contest for Speaker—William J. Brown 
Episode — The Compromise—First 
Speech in Congress—Letter from 
Sumner—Speech on ‘The Heal¬ 
ing Measures’—Visit to New 
England—The Homestead 
Bill—In terna tional 
Peace 

A totally unforeseen but by no means unnat¬ 
ural result of Julian’s efforts in behalf of Free 
Soil principles in 1848 was his nomination for 
Congress the following autumn by conventions of 
the new party in every county in the ‘Burnt Dis¬ 
trict’. 1 His Whig opponent was Samuel W. 
Parker, brother-in-law of the then incumbent, 
Caleb B. Smith, and in the canvass all the pas¬ 
sions of the year before were rekindled and in¬ 
tensified. Parker declared that he too was an 

1. Then the Fourth Congressional District of Indiana; now the 
Sixth. First so called in 1845 when an overwhelming Whig victory 
almost wiped out the Democratic party. This occurred shortly after two 
severe fires, one in Pittsburgh and the other in New York City, details 
of which were set forth in newspapers under the caption “Burnt 
District”. The name at first applied facetiously by the Democrats 
themselves to the region of their party’s disaster has ever since clung 
to the Whitewater district. Julian’s Unpublished Autobiography. Also 
J. P. Dunn’s article on “Burnt District”, Indianapolis News, Sept. 23, 
1922. 


(85) 


86 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

Abolitionist, “no yearling” either, but “of twenty- 
one years standing”, having started out with 
Garrison. Although deficient in the logical fac¬ 
ulty, Parker was a lawyer who ranked high as an 
orator, and was an intense partisan. 

At the opening of the campaign the odds 
seemed decidedly with the Whigs, but as the 
Democrats, who had no hope of electing a candi¬ 
date of their own, began to rally to the support 
of the Free Soil nominee, which they did partly 
because they were eager to chastise the Whigs, 
heretofore overwhelmingly in the ascendant in 
eastern Indiana, and partly in recognition of 
Julian’s independent attitude in the State Legis¬ 
lature four years before, it was seen that the con¬ 
test was to be close. It is said to have been a 
picturesque campaign, in which Julian’s earnest¬ 
ness, his facile use of humor and sarcasm, sup¬ 
plemented by the rough training gained in his 
contests with Walpole in Greenfield, enabled him 
at least to hold his own; the result was the elec¬ 
tion of the Free Soiler by a majority of one hun¬ 
dred and fifty-three votes. 

It seemed doubtful however whether he would 
ever occupy the seat he had gained because of a 
series of hemorrhages from the lungs, brought 
on by excessive speaking, which confined him to 
his bed for weeks and threatened his life. Ac¬ 
counts in his Journal of being “cupped in fifty- 
seven places” and of copious applications of 
croton oil, remind one that there were terrors 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


87 


other than political in those days, and that a 
vigorous constitution may be proof against almost 
any assaults. This was his first serious illness 
and he became so restive under it and so eager 
to be at his post that almost as soon as con¬ 
valescence began the doctors consented as a 
choice of evils that he should set out for Washing¬ 
ton, which he did on December 10th, arriving 
there nine days later. The journey was by car¬ 
riage to Cincinnati, thence by steamer to Pitts¬ 
burgh, and over the mountains in a stage coach, 
an exhausting ordeal for a man able to sit up only 
a few hours each day. But ambition and deter¬ 
mination are powerful factors, and improvemeent 
was so steady that he was able to go at once to the 
Capitol and to assume the regular duties of his 
position. 

The Julians at first took quarters in the United 
States Hotel, where their vis-a-vis at table were 
Col. Jefferson Davis, then a Senator from Missis¬ 
sippi, and his family. In the course of a few 
weeks, however, they joined Giddings and Judge 
Charles Allen, a Representative from Massa¬ 
chusetts, in lodgings on the north side of the 
Public Grounds facing the Capitol. 

The Washington of that time, with its unpaved 
streets, open gutters and nondescript architec¬ 
ture, presented the appearance of an overgrown 
village rather than the seat of government of a 
great nation. The Capitol consisted of the cen¬ 
tral portion only, without the two wings which 


88 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

add so greatly to its majestic appearance, and the 
old wooden dome had not yet been replaced by 
the present massive structure topped by its figure 
of Freedom. But to the Hoosier pair who made 
its acquaintance during the winter of 1849-1850 
it was grandly impressive, and although their in¬ 
troduction to the civilization of the south had in 
it an element of repulsion, bringing them face to 
face for the first time with human bondage and its 
accompaniments, yet they were vastly interested 
and correspondingly edified. 

Members of Congress then lived for the most 
part in boarding-houses, forming what they called 
“messes” or groups whose tastes and ideals were 
congenial. In Mr. Biddings’ “mess” of the pre¬ 
vious session had been Abraham Lincoln, a Rep¬ 
resentative from Illinois, whose honesty and 
native ability had appealed to the Ohio member, 
and he may well have referred to the tall west¬ 
erner in conversation with his new friends. Bid¬ 
dings’ urbanity and kindliness at once won for him 
a place in the affections of Mr. and Mrs. Julian, and 
he became their guide and confidential adviser. 
The other members of the Indiana delegation 
were eight Democrats:—Nathaniel Albertson of 
Breenville, First District; Cyrus L. Dunham of 
Salem, Second District; John L. Robinson of 
Rushville, Third District; William J. Brown of 
Indianapolis, Fifth District; Willis A. Borman of 
Bloomington, Sixth District; Joseph E. McDonald 
of Crawfordsville, Eighth District; Braham N. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


89 


Fitch of Logansport, Ninth District; and Andrew 
J. Harlan of Marion, Tenth District; and one 
Whig, Edward W. McGaughey of Rockville, 
Seventh District. Of these McGaughey and 
Julian [Fourth District] were the only native 
Hoosiers, the others having been born in Vir¬ 
ginia, Kentucky, Ohio, or New York. 

Julian had met only two of his colleagues be¬ 
fore going to Washington, but in any event his 
relations with them could not have been intimate 
owing to the sharpness with which party lines 
were then drawn and the wide divergence of his 
political views from theirs. He was cordially 
welcomed by the Free Soil members however, 
who were particularly glad to see him because of 
rumors in regard to his illness and the possibility 
that he would never reach Washington. Owing 
to their limited number, every individual Free 
Soiler loomed large in the eyes of Freedom's 
friends at that time. He soon felt at home among 
his new associates, which was fortunate, for 
socially these men were made to feel the effect of 
their ultra political ideas and were thrown much 
upon their own resources. 2 

The home of Dr. Gamaliel Bailey, editor of the 
National Era, offered the chief social refuge for 
this group of “pestilent fanatics", and their 

2. Mrs. Clement C. Clay of Alabama in her volume of reminis¬ 
cences after describing the location of a group of “true line” Southern¬ 
ers some five years later adds: “We keep Free Soilers, Black Repub¬ 
licans and Bloomers on the other side of the street. They are afraid 
even to inquire for board at this house.” A Belle of the Fifties, p. 43. 


90 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

weekly gatherings there, frequented by literary 
men and women, philanthropists and reformers 
of various kinds, constituted a veritable salon of 
the elect. That these companies were not always 
formal and staid affairs is indicated by the fact 
that such games as “blind man’s buff” were occa¬ 
sionally engaged in, which has a quaint and al¬ 
most primeval sound to the ears of the present 
generation. Here came “Grace Greenwood” 
(Mrs. Sara J. Lippincott) one of the most widely 
known newspaper correspondents of the day, who 
has since written entertainingly of these com¬ 
panies, and here too were met other notable 
women, among them Fredericka Bremer, the 
Swedish novelist then on a visit to this country, 
and Mrs. Southworth, at the height of her fame as 
a writer of romances, whose home was a social 
Mecca for men and women of widely varying 
opinions. 

The memorable contest for Speaker of the ' 
House of Representatives in which Howell Cobb, 
Democrat, opposed Robert C. Winthrop, Whig, 
was nearing its close when Julian arrived, a con¬ 
test that well represented the controversy then 
challenging the attention of the country. The 
Free Soilers were agreed that they could not vote 
for Cobb, a slave-holder, even though their Demo¬ 
cratic friends strongly desired and urged it. 
Neither could they gratify the Whigs by support¬ 
ing Winthrop, because his conduct as Speaker in 
the preceding Congress had proven him “an ac¬ 
complished Doughface”, and he declined to pledge 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


91 


himself to a more anti-slavery attitude in case of 
re-election. They accordingly voted for one an¬ 
other, most frequently for David Wilmot of Penn¬ 
sylvania. Cobb was elected on the sixty-third 
ballot by the operation of the plurality rule, 
whereupon the Free Soilers were accused of hav¬ 
ing elected a slave-holder Speaker of the House, 
although they had insisted all along that they 
were ready to vote for any reliably anti-slavery 
Whig, and it was clearly understood that Win- 
throp could not command their support. The 
historian Pvhodes in this connection insists that 
while it is true that there are now and then politi¬ 
cal principles that cannot be compromised under 
any circumstances, yet “for the most part in pub¬ 
lic life one should sacrifice his ideal good for the 
best attainable”, 3 and pronounces this such a case. 
On the other hand, we have the instance of an 
eminent New England worthy who when asked 
what his course would be if the choice lay between 
Satan and Belial, replied that his ballot would be 
cast with those of “Gabriel and the scattering vot¬ 
ers.” Just how far personalities entered into this 
particular incident it is impossible to say, but the 
character of the men who took this responsibility 
warrants the assumption of their sincerity and 
honesty of purpose. 4 

While Julian was steaming along the Ohio on 

3. Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. I, p. 117. 

4. Their action was thought by Julian to have been further vindi¬ 
cated by Winthrop’s subsequent course in supporting Fillmore against 
Fremont in 1856, Bell against Lincoln in 1860, and McClellan against 
Lincoln in 1864. 


92 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

his way to Washington he learned of a happening 
in connection with the Speakership contest that 
caused him much annoyance and that was des¬ 
tined indirectly to affect his own political future. 
William J. Brown, a Democratic colleague from 
Indiana, and one of the candidates for Speaker, 
had received the support of several Free Soil 
members and had at one time come within two 
votes of being elected. Brown was known to be 
pro-slavery in his sympathies, and the fact that 
staunch Free Soilers had voted for him aroused a 
suspicion of a secret bargain of some sort and 
alienated a sufficient number of southerners to 
defeat him. After the vote, the fact was brought 
out in open session that Brown had actually prom¬ 
ised David Wilmot in writing to constitute certain 
committees in a manner satisfactory to the Free 
Soilers, and of course general discomfiture en¬ 
sued. Julian lost no time after his arrival in ex¬ 
pressing his surprise and dismay at the action of 
those Free Soilers who had entered into such a 
compact and in painting Brown in his true colors. 

The Thirty-first Congress was one of the most 
interesting in the history of our government, and 
the young man whose fortune it was to partici¬ 
pate in its deliberations was privileged in a rare 
degree. In the Senate appeared for the last time 
Thomas H. Benton of Missouri, John C. Calhoun 
of South Carolina, Henry Clay of Kentucky, and 
Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, all of whom ex¬ 
cept Clay, were born in 1782, and hence connect- 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


93 


ing links between the Revolutionary and Civil 
War periods. Not less picturesque and dating 
back almost as far, was Sam Houston of Texas, 
while among the new men destined to exert a com¬ 
manding influence on national affairs were Wil¬ 
liam H. Seward of New York and Salmon P. 
Chase of Ohio. 

Slavery extension w r as the great question before 
the country. Oregon had been organized in the 
previous Congress, slavery being prohibited there, 
and the question of admitting California and New 
Mexico was now uppermost. Neither had yet 
taken on the form of territorial governments, but 
since the discovery of gold the population of Cali¬ 
fornia had so increased as to warrant application 
for statehood. A convention accordingly met, 
drafted a constitution in which slavery was dis¬ 
tinctly prohibited, and this constitution was over¬ 
whelmingly ratified by the California people. 
President Taylor in his message to the new Con¬ 
gress advised admission, expressing the opinion 
that New Mexico would soon follow suit. Of 
course the southern members saw in this proposal 
an attempt to disturb the time honored equi¬ 
librium between the two sections in favor of the 
north, and great excitement prevailed. 3 The 
south hoped to organize both California and New 
Mexico as territories, without slavery restriction, 
thus enabling southerners to settle there with 

5. This equilibrium had for years been maintained by the admis¬ 
sion of a free state and a slave state at about the same time. 


94 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


their slaves and presently to form governments 
wherein slavery should be perpetuated. This 
situation was complicated by the question of the 
Texas boundary, the debt of Texas, the proposal 
to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the Dis¬ 
trict of Columbia, and the alleged necessity for a 
new and more rigorous Fugitive Slave Law. 

It was with the hope and earnest desire of solv¬ 
ing all these vexed questions and once more 
smoothing out the wrinkled aspect of national af¬ 
fairs that Senator Clay brought forward on Janu¬ 
ary 29th his famous Compromise. He would 
admit California as a State without any restric¬ 
tions as to slavery; he would establish territorial 
governments in the remaining Mexican cession, 
likewise without slavery restrictions; he would fix 
the western boundary of Texas without taking 
away any of New Mexico; he would have the gen¬ 
eral government assume the Texas debt on condi¬ 
tion that Texas relinquish all claims on New Mex¬ 
ico ; he would abolish the slave trade in the 
District of Columbia so far as it related to negroes 
brought into the District for that purpose-; and he 
urged a Fugitive Slave Law more satisfactory to 
the South. 

This was Clay’s famous “Omnibus Bill”, and 
these were the principles debated by both Houses 
of Congress during more than seven months, and 
finally enacted into law, not in the form originally 
proposed by Clay but as separate measures, the 
last being out of the way in time for adjourn- 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


95 


ment on September 30th. Throughout the long 
hot summer the discussion continued, many mem¬ 
bers being prostrated by the heat and returning 
to their homes. Cholera raged in and around 
Washington a part of the time, adding to the ap¬ 
prehension and discomfort. The death of Presi¬ 
dent Taylor on July 9th cast a gloom over the city 
such as had not been known for years. Calhoun 
had died on March 31st, less than four weeks 
after his great speech on the Compromise in 
which he referred to Washington as “the illustri¬ 
ous southerner”, a speech which he was too feeble 
to deliver, his friend Mason of Virginia perform¬ 
ing this service. Julian heard this and the other 
notable utterances on the Compromise. His 
judgment of Webster’s “Seventh of March 
Speech” coincided with the prevailing view at the 
north, that it was a shameless surrender of prin¬ 
ciple and an open bid for the presidency. Al¬ 
though some writers of a later day have looked 
with charitable eyes upon this act, seeing in it 
only a supreme effort to avert the threatened war 
between the sections, Julian never altered his view 
as to Webster’s recreancy. Where freedom was 
involved he was implacable, and he firmly believed 
that the great New Englander had sold out to the 
south. 6 

During the first weeks of his service Julian 
properly remained quiet, a studious and watchful 

6. For Julian’s impressions of the Thirty-first Congress see his 
Political Recollections, chapters IV and V. 


96 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

on-looker. That he was alert and not afraid to 
incur censure appears from the Congressional 
Globe, which shows that on January 6, 1850, he 
called down upon himself the displeasure of slave¬ 
holders and Doughfaces by presenting a petition 
from anti-slavery Friends praying for the repeal 
of the Fugitive Slave Law and getting the yeas 
and nays on receiving it. His own delegation did 
not disguise its disapproval of this performance, 
as of later similar acts showing his disposition to 
do his own thinking and his defiance of the slave 
power. 

In his first speech Julian made use of some of 
the material supplied the year before by Giddings, 
examining the subject of slavery in all its bear¬ 
ings, noticing and answering the arguments of 
southern members in its defense, replying effect¬ 
ively to the charge of “northern aggression”, 
proving conclusively the uniform and shameless 
submission on the part of the north to the de¬ 
mands of the slave-holders, gallantly defending 
the Abolitionists, from whose constitutional doc¬ 
trines he expressed total dissent, against the 
bitter charges made by southern statesmen, de¬ 
fining exactly the position of the little Free Soil 
contingent in Congress, and concluding by throw¬ 
ing down the gauntlet to the defenders of slavery 
North and South. The speech was ready for de¬ 
livery in March and day after day for weeks he 
endeavored to obtain the floor, finally succeeding 
on May 14th. Considering the time, the attend- 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


97 


ant circumstances, the audience to which it was 
addressed, and the speaker, a young westerner 
who had just passed his thirty-third birthday and 
whose educational advantages had been exceed¬ 
ingly meager it was a remarkable effort, of which 
his constituents may well have been proud. The 
following paragraphs from the opening of the 
speech convey an idea of its character: 7 

“I am not vain enough to suppose that anything 
I may say will influence the action of this commit¬ 
tee (Committee of the Whole on the State of the 
Union) ; yet I should hereafter reproach myself 
were I to sit here day after day and w r eek after 
week till the close of the session, listening to the 
monstrous heresies, and I am tempted to say the 
impudent bluster, of Southern gentlemen, without 
confronting them on this floor with a becoming 
protest in the name of the people I have the honor 
to represent. Sir, what is the language with 
which these gentlemen have greeted our ears for 
some months past? The gentleman from North 
Carolina (Mr. Clingman) tells us that less pauper¬ 
ism and crime abound in the South than in the 
North, and that there never has existed a higher 
civilization than is now exhibited by the slave¬ 
holding states of this Union; and so in love is he 
with his “peculiar institution”, which thus pro¬ 
motes the growth of civilization by turning three 
millions of human beings into savages, and pre- 

7. Congressional Globe, Appendix, May 14, 1850, 31st Cong. 1st 
Sess. Vol. XXII, pp. 573-579. 


7—24142 


98 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


vents them from becoming paupers by converting 
them into brutes, that he gives out the threat, 
doubtless in behalf of his Southern friends, that 
unless they are permitted, under national sanc¬ 
tion, to extend their accursed system over the 
virgin soil of our territories, they will block the 
wheels of government, revolutionize the forms of 
legislation, and involve this nation in the horrors 
of civil war. Nay, he goes farther, and antici¬ 
pating the triumph of Northern arms, and com¬ 
paring the vanquished “chivalry” to the Spartans 
at Thermopylae, he kindly furnishes the future 
historian with the epitaph which is to tell to 
posterity the sad story of slave-holding valor: 
“Here Lived and Died as Noble a Race as the Sun 
Ever Shoivn Upon ”,—fighting (he should have 
added) for the extension and perpetuation of 
human bondage. 

“The gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Brown) 
manifests an equal devotion to the controlling in¬ 
terest of the South. He declares that he regards 
slavery as a great moral, social, political and reli¬ 
gious blessing,—a blessing to the slave and a 
blessing to the master. The celebrated John 
Wesley was so fanatical as to declare that 
slavery is the sum of all villainies. Had he 
lived in this enlightened age and Christian land 
he would have learned that on the contrary it is 
the sum of all blessings. He would have been told 
that even the Bible sanctions it as a divine insti¬ 
tution. Southern gentlemen remind us that it 
“existed in the tents of the patriarchs and in the 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


99 


households of His chosen people”; that “it was 
established by decree of Almighty God”, and is 
sanctioned in the Bible—in both Testaments— 
from Genesis to Revelation”; and so sacredly is 
it to be cherished that we in the North are not 
allowed to give utterance to our deepest moral 
convictions respecting it. My friend from Mis¬ 
sissippi graciously admits that we think slavery 
an evil; but he adds, “Very well, think so; but 
keep your thoughts to yourselves .” Thus, in the 
imperative mood and characteristic style of a 
slave-driver are we to be silenced. In this 
“freest nation on earth” our thoughts must be 
suppressed by this slaveholding inquisition. . . . 

“And the gentleman from Mississippi, like his 
friend from North Carolina, is in favor of extend¬ 
ing the blessings of slavery at all hazards. The 
South will not submit to be girdled round by free 
soil; and if we dare to thwart her purpose we are 
reminded of the struggle of our fathers against 
British tyranny. Southern gentlemen point us to 
the battlefields of our Revolution and bid us be¬ 
ware. A Northern man, especially if disposed to 
be “fanatical”, would suppose that our Southern 
brethren would avoid such allusions. Our fa¬ 
thers, it is true, resisted the aggressions of the 
mother country “at all hazards and to the last 
extremity”; but their resistance was not in behalf 
of slavery, but of freedom. Mr. Madison de¬ 
clared in 1783 that “it was the boast and pride of 
America that the rights for which she contended 
were the rights of human nature.” And Mr. 


100 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Jefferson said that one hour of this American 
slavery which has so recently been transfigured 
into all blessedness “is fraught with more misery 
than ages of that which we rose in rebellion to 
oppose.” In speaking of an apprehended strug¬ 
gle of the blacks to rid themselves of their 
bondage he affirmed that “the Almighty has no 
attribute which can take sides with us in such a 
contest.” Yet Southern gentlemen appeal to our 
Revolutionary history as a warning to us, and a 
justification of a war on their part, not for the 
establishment but the subversion of liberty, and 
the destruction of the ‘rights of human nature’ by 
the indefinite extension over free lands of that 
system of bondage which the very soul of Jeffer¬ 
son abhorred. All this, to northern men, seems 
strange. As a specimen of southern philosophy 
it may be very creditable to politicians from that 
quarter and it may appeal powerfully to their pa¬ 
triotism, but we cannot comprehend it. Nothing 
short of the serene understanding and unclouded 
vision of a slaveholder can fathom such argu¬ 
ments.” 8 

8. Ibid. 

“It is refreshing in the midst of the disgusting and sick¬ 
ening exhibitions of Southern insolence, arrogance and rapacity on the 
one hand, and Northern concession, cowardice and treachery on the 
other, which form most of the history of the present Congress, to 
meet now and then a man who has not bartered away his manhood 
and who regards principle as something better than a bait to catch 
pious fools, a man who while he respects the rights of others will 
make his own respected. Mr. Julian’s speech gives evidence of such a 
man. It is in its spirit and tone as welcome as a draught of pure 
water to a traveller who has journeyed many days over hot and putrid 
marshes.” Pennsylvania Freeman, June 18, 1850. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


101 


This speech called forth letters from Charles 
Sumner, Rev. William H. Furness, John G. Pal¬ 
frey, Lewis Tappan and many others, the first of 
which is here given : 

Boston, June 6, 1850. 

My Dear Sir: 

I am obliged to you for your kindness in sending me a 
copy of your speech. I am more grateful to you still for 
making it. You have gone over the whole field of the 
slavery question and have presented in a most interesting 
manner the true conclusions. Few have treated it in the 
same exhaustive manner. I hope your speech will be 
widely circulated. The knowledge it contains, its temper, 
and its conclusions, cannot fail to influence all who read it. 

We had the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Julian here during 
the winter. I hope that her account of our frigid region 
will not discourage you from making us a visit also. I 
can promise you a warm welcome from the heart, whatever 
the climate may be. 

The old parties seem now, more than ever, in a state of 
dissolution. The cry will soon be 

Mingle, mingle, 

Ye that mingle may. 

At least so it looks from many indications. But we have 
a clear course to pursue—to stick to our principles wher¬ 
ever they may carry us. 

I have not heard lately from Mr. Giddings, but trust 
that he is well. 

Believe me dear sir, 

Very faithfully yours, 

CHARLES SUMNER. 9 

9. Julian Letters. “I get a lot of letters every day commending 
my speech and describing its good effect on friend and foe, and am 
really becoming so used to being praised that I don’t mind it much! 
I spend much time in franking copies to individuals who still keep 
ordering it. I have partially converted my Carolina relatives and am 
sending a quantity to them for distribution.” Letter to Mrs. Julian, 
June 26, 1860. 


102 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

Early in the year 1850 Mrs. Julian had paid a 
visit to friends in Massachusetts and about June 
1st she returned to Indiana. In her husband’s 
daily letters to her, often brief and dashed off 
hastily at night, but breathing the atmosphere of 
the Washington of that time, he dwells on the do¬ 
ings of Congress and the tedium of the weary 
weeks of that longest session yet known. It was 
particularly distasteful to the Free Soil members, 
because while entirely disapproving of the meas¬ 
ures that were slowly being enacted they were 
nevertheless powerless to do more than protest. 
He tells of the walks and games of ten-pins of 
Giddings, Allen and himself, of their attendance 
at Presidential levees, of the calls they made to¬ 
gether and the calls received in return, of their 
“endeavors after” a better boarding place, of the 
“feats in gallantry and wonderful adventures” of 
Senator [Charles] Durkee, the Wisconsin member 
of the Free Soil coterie, and himself, also of their 
foot-races on the green and visits to Mrs. South- 
worth, of Dr. Bailey’s receptions and the interest¬ 
ing persons met there. On July 18th he described 
the funeral of President Taylor, the most mag¬ 
nificent pageant Washington had ever witnessed, 
and declares that notwithstanding the severe 
things he had said about the old General he had 
come to have sincere respect for his rugged hon¬ 
esty and the firmness with which he had opposed 
the dictates of his southern friends on the ques¬ 
tion of the admission of California; for it was 



GEORGE W. JULIAN 


103 


generally understood that he had sorely offended 
them by this action. 

One feels conscious in reading these communi¬ 
cations that it was a very different world from 

ours, a far less complex, but not a better world, 

* 

over which brooded constantly the threatening 
shadow of civil war. The almost universal drink¬ 
ing disgusted him, as did the prevailing and ap¬ 
parently unnoticed profanity even among educated 
and otherwise cultivated people. On September 
9th he describes the public rejoicing over the 
passage of the Texas Boundary bill, the New 
Mexico Territorial bill, the latter an open aban¬ 
donment of the Wilmot Proviso, and the bill for 
the admission of California. “On Saturday night 
one hundred guns were fired in honor of the great 
southern triumph, and the whole city was in an 
uproar of glorification. Stands were erected and 
large crowds assembled to hear the speaking. The 
impression seems to be that the Free Soilers and 
their principles are dead and buried, and that no 
more 'agitation’ will ever be heard of. We shall 
see.” 10 

On September 14th Charles Francis Adams 
wrote Julian from Quincy: 

“The consummation of the iniquities of this 
most disgraceful session of Congress is now 
reached. I know not how much the people will 
bear. My faith in their moral sense is very much 
shaken. They have been so often debauched by 


10. Julian Letters. 


104 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

profligate politicians that I know not whether a 
case of breach of promise will lie against their 
seducers. Yet I do hope that our true and 
staunch men of all sides will consent so far to over¬ 
look party lines as to unite in a joint address giv¬ 
ing a naked history of the events of the session 
and leaving it to the judgment of all honest people 
to act as they shall think proper. If this cannot 
be done, then our Free Soil band has a duty to 
perform. I pray that they may not leave it un¬ 
done.” 11 

Adams’ reference in the first sentence was to 
the most shocking of all these measures, the new 
Fugitive Slave law, which was hurried through 
the House on September 12th without reference 
to any committee, without being printed, and with 
no opportunity for debate. This measure, far 
more objectionable than the Fugitive Slave law 
of 1793, 12 provided among other things that every 
citizen, when called upon by the proper officer, 
should actively aid in the capture of a fugitive 
slave. In his speech on “The Healing Measures”, 
on September 25th, Julian dealt with some of the 
worst features of the Clay Compromise, the pass¬ 
age of the Fugitive Slave bill being the immediate 
occasion of his utterance. Replying to the charge 
that those who voted against the Texas Boundary 
bill voted for civil war, he said: 

11. Julian Letters, Sept. 14, 1850. 

12. Laivs of the U. S. of America*, Feb. 12, 1793, Vol. II, Chap. 
152, p. 331. “The mere statement of the provisions of this law is its 
condemnation.” Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. I, p. 186. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


105 


‘‘Mr. Chairman, I deprecate war as much as 
any gentleman on this floor. I claim to be an 
humble advocate of the great peace movement of 
the age. I stand opposed to the war spirit and 
the war mania in all their popular manifestations. 
. . . And yet I will not deny that I think war 

sometimes necessary. I must say that I believe 
there are things more to be dreaded. The be¬ 
trayal of sacred trusts is worse than war; shrink¬ 
ing from a just responsibility when necessary to 
encounter it is worse than war; the extension of 
slavery by the Federal government and with the 
approval of the nation, I should pronounce worse 
than war; and to be more specific, war is less to 
be deplored than the dastardly and craven spirit 
which would prompt the representatives of twen¬ 
ty millions of people to cower and turn pale at 
the bandit threats of Texan slaveholders, and give 
them millions of acres and millions of gold as a 
peace-offering to the vandal spirit of slaveholding 
agression.” 13 

In regard to the admission of New Mexico and 
Utah with or without slavery as the people of 
those territories might determine, he declared: 

“My honorable colleague has discovered that 
the Wilmot Proviso was ‘conceived in sin and 
brought forth in iniquity'. Does he understand 
the import of the term? Does he not know that 
it means simply the right of a whole people, 
whether of a State or Territory, to the common 

13. Globe, Sept. 25, 1850 Vol. XXII, Pt. II, App. p. 1300. 


106 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


blessing of freedom? In its application to our 
Territories the Wilmot Proviso is the Declaration 
of Independence embodied in a fundamental law 
for their government. Our fathers declared that 
'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ are 
among the inalienable rights of men, and that 
‘governments are instituted to secure these rights, 
deriving their just powers from the consent of 
the governed’. Make these truths operative in 
the Territories by the competent law-making 
power, and you have the Wilmot Proviso, call it 
by whatever name you choose. Instead of being 
‘conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity’, 
it was conceived in the brains of such patriots as 
Sir Harry Vane and Algernon Sidney, in the time 
of the English Commonwealth, and finally 
brought forth in the glorious fruits of our own 
Revolution in 1776. It is the very life-blood of 
our freedom; and although for the present its 
friends are powerless, they should stand by it and 
maintain it as long as they retain their faith in 
the rights of man and the duty of government to 
provide guards for their security. And I desire 
to say too that did I feel as confident as some gen¬ 
tlemen profess to feel that slavery in any event- 
will not obtain a foothold in our Territories, I 
would still insist on the Proviso as a wholesome 
and needful reassertion in the present crisis of 
the principles on which the government was 
founded and was designed to be administered,— 
as a means of restoring it to its early policy and 
animating it anew with the breath of freedom 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


107 


which bore our fathers through their conflict and 
made us an independent nation. It is peculiarly 
an American principle and devotion to it should 
be as honorable to an American citizen as his 
abandonment of it should be disgraceful. And if 
there is one circumstance connected with my 
service in the present Congress to which in after 
years I shall look back with pleasure and with 
pride, it is that in the midst of the false lights 
and false alarms and seductive influences by 
which the ranks of freedom have been thinned 
and the policy of Jefferson trampled under foot, I 
insisted to the last on the duty of Congress to pro¬ 
tect our infant Territories from inroads of sla¬ 
very by positive law.” 14 

Referring to the provisions of the new Fugi¬ 
tive Slave Law, and especially the one compelling 
citizens of the free States to assist in the capture 
of run-away slaves, he said: 

“Mr. Chairman, I tell these southern gentlemen 
and their northern brethren that for one, I would 
resist the execution of this latter provision, if 
need be at the peril of my life. I am sure that 
my constituents will resist it. I repeat what I 
said on a former occasion, that there is no earthly 
power that can induce us thus to take sides with 
the oppressor. If I believed the people I represent 
were base enough to become the miserable flunk¬ 
ies of a God-forsaken southern slave-hunter by 
joining him or his constables in the bloodhound 


14. Ibid. p. 1301. 


108 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

chase of a panting slave, I would scorn to hold a 
seat on this floor by their suffrages and would 
denounce them as fit subjects themselves for the 
lash of the slave driver. Sir, they will do no such 
thing, and I give notice now to our southern 
brethren that their newly vamped Fugitive Slave 
bill cannot be executed in that portion of Indiana 
which I have the honor to represent.” 15 

After asserting that it would be as easy to re¬ 
verse the currents of the Mississippi as to control 
those moral forces by which American slavery 
must perish, he concluded: 

“Gentlemen may quarrel about Pennsylvania 
iron and New England manufactures, river and 
harbor improvements and the best disposition of 
the public lands; but the question which more 
than all others comes home to the bosoms of men 
is whether slavery or freedom shall have the as¬ 
cendancy in this government. ‘I never would 
have drawn my sword in defense of America’ said 
General Lafayette, ‘if I had thought that I was 
thereby founding a land of slaves’. Here, sir, lies 
the great question, and it must be met. Neither 
acts of Congress nor the devices of partisans can 
postpone or evade it. It will have itself an¬ 
swered. I am aware that it involves the bread 
and butter of whole hosts of politicians, and I do 
not marvel at their attempts to escape it, to 
smother it, to hide it from the eyes of the people, 
and to dam up the moral tide which is forcing it 


15 . Ibid . 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


109 


upon them. Neither do I marvel at their firing 
of guns and bacchanalian libations over ‘the dead 
body of the Wilmoth Such labors and rejoicings 
are by no means unnatural; but they will be fol¬ 
lowed by disappointment. It is in vain to expect 
peace by continued concessions to an institution 
which is becoming every hour more and more a 
stigma upon the nation, and which instead of 
seeking new conquests and new life should be pre¬ 
paring itself with grave-clothes for a decent exit 
from the world . . . When the action of the 

Federal government shall be entirely withdrawn 
from the support of slavery and the states in 
which it exists shall be content with the protec¬ 
tion which their own laws shall afford, then agi¬ 
tation may cease. Sooner than that it cannot and 
it ought not.” 16 

This speech received numerous complimentary 
notices and was widely copied. Its clear-cut and 
uncompromising deliverances made for its author 
many new friends, particularly in the New Eng¬ 
land States, whither, in response to urgent invita¬ 
tions, he went on the adjournment of Congress, 
tarrying en route for a brief visit with James and 
Lucretia Mott in Philadelphia. He attended the 
Free Soil State convention in Boston, where he 
heard for the first time Charles Sumner, already 
talked of as Webster’s successor in the Senate of 
the United States, Charles Francis Adams, Van 
Buren’s running mate in the campaign of 1848, 


16. Ibid. p. 1302. 


110 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

young Anson Burlingame, only four years out of 
Harvard, but destined to distinguished honors, 
and Dr. John G. Palfrey, historian and one of 
Giddings’ close associates in the previous Con¬ 
gress. He himself also addressed the convention, 
setting forth the infamous character of the Com¬ 
promise measures and appealing to the people to 
put in power men who would be faithful to free¬ 
dom and their own consciences. 17 

While in Boston he called on Theodore Parker, 
whom he was surprised to find conducting a 
prayer-meeting, and also at the office of The 
Liberator where, in Garrison’s absence he was en¬ 
tertained by his faithful coadjutor, Stephen S. 
Foster, dubbed by Lowell “a kind of maddened 
John the Baptist”, with whom he discussed non- 
resistance. He also heard Jenny Lind to his 
great delight, and dined in company with Bur¬ 
lingame at the old Adams mansion in Quincy, 
where there seemed to the Hoosier “too much 
ceremony”, a comment that provokes a smile in 
view of the words of Mr. Adams’ son Henry sixty 
years later to the effect that “a simpler manner 
of life and thought could hardly exist short of 
cave-dwelling.” 18 Julian’s next stop was at Salem 
as the guest of Stephen C. Phillips, who on his 
retirement from Congress in 1838 had served four 
years as mayor of this his native city, devoting 

17. “The speech of Mr. Julian, one of the noble little band in 
Congress who have been faithful among the faithless, was warmly 
received by the convention. His presence was welcomed by enthusi¬ 
astic cheering.” Boston Commonwealth, October 10, 1850. 

18. The Education of Henry Adams, p. 10. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


111 


his entire salary to the improvement of its public 
schools, and had been the Free Soil candidate for 
Governor in 1849. Although he had given up 
political life, he was keenly interested in the cause 
that was then uppermost in the minds of all these 
men. At Lynn, Julian was surprised to find him¬ 
self advertised along with Wendell Phillips and 
Charles S. Burleigh to address an anti-Fugitive 
Slave Law meeting that day, a meeting presided 
over by the mayor, John B. Alley, who was to 
serve the cause of freedom with him in the thirty- 
seventh and thirty-eighth Congresses. 

After a brief visit at the home of Judge Charles 
Allen in Worcester, Julian hastened home to 
Centerville, from which he had been absent more 
than ten months, and one is not surprised that the 
village impressed him as “dingy and dilapidated” 
and “a lonesome placq”. He of course enjoyed 
his little domestic circle, the reunion with friends, 
and the rest from excitement; but his adventures 
in the larger world had insensibly dwarfed the 
old familiar surroundings, which would never 
again assume their one-time imposing appear¬ 
ance. It is noteworthy that his interest in the 
slavery question was the means of bringing him 
in contact with the intellectual and moral salt of 
the earth in our country at that period, and the 
friendships thus formed were destined to endure 
and to exercise a shaping influence on his later 
life. 

Returning to Washington for the opening of the 
second session of the thirty-first Congress on 


112 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

December 2, 1850, he at once devoted consider¬ 
able time to the land question which had first 
challenged his attention some years before. A 
common interest in this subject had brought him 
during the previous session into close touch with 
Andrew Johnson, Representative from Tennessee, 
who had introduced a bill providing free home¬ 
steads of a hundred and sixty acres each to actual 
landless settlers on certain conditions of occu¬ 
pancy and improvement, and when Julian’s Home¬ 
stead speech was ready for delivery it was through 
Johnson’s friendly help that he obtained the floor 
on January 29, 1851, in opposition to the wish of 
Speaker Cobb. 19 Although the doctrines set forth 
by the Indiana member met with scant favor at 
that time, being only a little less objectionable 
than Abolitionism itself, the speech undoubtedly 
played its part in preparing the way for the Home¬ 
stead Bill which became a law eleven years later. 20 
The radical defect of the bill finally passed was 
the failure to provide against the sale of the pub¬ 
lic lands in large bodies to non-residents for 
speculative purposes. To remedy this defect, 
Julian labored for years in an effort to have 
an amendment passed, as abundantly appears 
from a perusal of his published speeches. 

This speech of 1851 on the Homestead Bill is 
notable for its thorough and lucid exposition of 
the subject and for its tone of faith in the ulti- 

19. Globe, Jan. 29, 1851, Vol. XXIII, p. 365, 2nd Sess. 31st Cong. 

20. Acts of Cong. 37th Cong, 2nd Sess. Ch. 75, p. 392, May 20, 
1862. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


113 


mate triumph of the principles for which he con¬ 
tended. There were at that time some fourteen 
hundred million acres of public lands, the manage¬ 
ment of which devolved by the Constitution on 
Congress, and its just disposition presented a 
grave question. The Homestead Bill under con¬ 
sideration contemplated a radical change of poli¬ 
cy in that it abandoned the idea of holding the 
public domain as a source of revenue and likewise 
the policy of further grants to the states or to 
chartered companies for special objects, and made 
it free, in limited portions, to actual settlers on 
condition of occupancy and improvement. Of the 
more than one hundred million acres already sold 
by the government through the several land of¬ 
fices, about half had already fallen into the hands 
of speculators who were holding it without im¬ 
provement, thus excluding actual settlers who 
would have made it a source of wealth to them¬ 
selves while adding to the public revenue. 21 

The bill appealed to him as an anti-slavery 
measure. Should it become a law, the poor white 
laborers of the South as well as of the North 
would flock to the Territories, where labor would 
be respectable, our democratic theory of equality 
would be put in practice, closely associated com¬ 
munities would be established as well as a system 
of common schools offering to all equal educational 
opportunities. He insisted that a new sacredness 
would be given to the home, and the broad shield 

21. Globe, 31st Cong. 2nd Sess. App. p. 135. 


8—24142 


114 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

of the government would be thrown over that 
greatest and most beneficent of all institutions, 
the family. A student of history and philosophy, 
Julian's utterances here as elsewhere were en¬ 
riched and his positions illustrated and supported 
by references to high authorities, while his sym¬ 
pathy with the toiler, the man on whom fall the 
heaviest burdens, was manifest. In view of later 
legislation in aid of agriculture and the education 
of the farmer the following sentences appear 
prophetic: 

“Mr. Speaker, the bill under consideration 
possesses one recommendation which I think 
worthy of special consideration. It gives encour¬ 
agement to a business which more than any other 
promotes the happiness of those engaged in it, 
whilst it favors the prosperity of the whole coun¬ 
try. No other occupation perhaps is so well cal¬ 
culated to inspire trust in the Creator and charity 
toward his creatures. The pleasures and virtues 
of rural life have been the theme of poets and 
philosophers in all ages. The tillage of the soil 
was the primeval employment of man. Of all 
arts it is the most useful and necessary. It has 
justly been styled the nursing mother of the State; 
for in civilized countries all are equally dependent 
upon it for the means of subsistence, since hunger 
and nakedness are universal wants. It is esti¬ 
mated that nearly three-fourths of the labor and 
capital of the country are employed in this single 
pursuit; and that agriculturists themselves are a 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


/ 


115 


large majority of the voters, tax-payers, and con¬ 
sumers of all foreign and domestic goods. Is not 
such an employment deserving of the care of 
Congress? The cultivation of the soil is an obli¬ 
gation imposed upon man by nature; and this 
fact alone would seem to impose upon government 
the obligation to encourage it to the full extent 
of its power. When so much is done by direct 
legislation for other interests is it not fair that 
the one paramount to them all should be aided? 

“The public domain has been a common fund 
to which the government has resorted for almost 
every variety of object; but not a single acre has 
ever been granted for the benefit of agriculture. 
Such a phenomenon as an appropriation for ex¬ 
perimental farms, or agricultural colleges, has 
never been known. Is the cultivation of the soil 
an occupation so contemptible, so useless to the 
state, as not to demand the attention of the gov¬ 
ernment? The encouragement of manufactures, 
of commerce, and of other less important interests 
is to be commended; but is not the encouragement 
of agriculture, the parent of them all, at least 
equally important?” 22 

Mr. Julian returned to Indiana immediately on 
adjournment, March 4th, and his recorded reflec¬ 
tions show that he felt reasonably satisfied with 
his course. In this his first Congress he had taken 
a position among the outspoken antagonists of 
slavery; he had enunciated ideas on the subject of 


22. Ibid. p. 137. 


116 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

land reform that however unpopular at the time, 
he felt sure were right and must eventually pre¬ 
vail; life had been diversified, sometimes pain¬ 
fully so, but he had a consciousness that its con¬ 
flicts were necessary to progress and he was far 
from regretting them. He did not disguise from 
himself the fact that inexperienced as he was he 
must have made mistakes; but he had honestly 
tried to do his duty and always counted it a priv¬ 
ilege and an honor to have shared in the great 
conflict between liberty and her foes during that 
memorable crisis. 

A subject that strongly appealed to him was 
that of international peace, and but for the ex¬ 
treme length of the first session of this Congress, 
December 1849 to September 1850, he would prob¬ 
ably have carried out his intention to attend the 
World’s Peace Convention in Germany in August 
of the latter year. Disappointed in this expecta¬ 
tion he looked forward to the London Peace Con¬ 
gress the year following, but by that time he was 
in the thick of another political race which ren¬ 
dered such a venture out of the question. It 
seems likely that his Quaker inheritance and en¬ 
vironment were largely responsible for his early 
stand on this question, a position strengthened by 
his reading of Hugo Grotius’ great work on 
“Peace and War” and by other books of a kindred 
nature. 


CHAPTER V 


Defeated for Renomination to Congress—Oliver 

P. Morton—‘Carrying On’ — Temperance — 
Free Soil National Convention, 1852 — 
Nominated for Vice President — In¬ 
cidents of the campaign— u The 
State of Political Parties.” 

Before the close of the session Julian wrote 
to his wife: “I see you expect to drive around with 
me in canvassing the district next summer, but 
I think the prospect much better for quitting pol¬ 
itics entirely. I mean to take the straightforward 
course without regard to consequences .” 1 Those 
who had stood out against the Compromise meas¬ 
ures and who continued to rebuke the pro-slavery 
reaction of the times did not face a rosy prospect 
so far as political honors were concerned. It was 
a trying period for anti-slavery men, only the 
most earnest of whom were able to withstand the 
temptation to acquiesce in the popular verdict that 
agitation against the institution had at last been 
silenced. Press, pulpit and politicians were prac¬ 
tically a unit in commending the “final settle¬ 
ment” of the question that had so long troubled 
the country and in branding as fanatics and dan¬ 
gerous members of society those who insisted that 
the end was not yet. This was true all over the 

1. Letter to Anne Elizabeth Julian, January 9, 1850. 


( 117 ) 


118 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


north, but in no State was it more difficult to with¬ 
stand Hunker sentiment than in Indiana, whose 
large southern population naturally colored the 
political atmosphere. 

That the fighting blood of his ancestors had 
not lost its quality and that his zeal in behalf of 
the cause he had espoused only increased as he 
saw the dire straits into which it had apparently 
fallen, is shown by Julian’s resolve to enter upon 
a second race for Congress, backed by his Free 
Soil friends, against his former opponent, Samuel 
W. Parker, the nominee of the Whigs. It is quite 
probable that he would again have been success¬ 
ful too, because Parker in his enthusiastic support 
of the Compromise utterly repudiated his anti¬ 
slavery professions of two years before, had it 
not been for the fierce hostility of the Indiana 
State Sentinel, edited by William J. Brown , 2 re¬ 
inforced by a formidable local opposition headed 
by Oliver P. Morton. The latter succeeded in get¬ 
ting up a Democratic meeting in Centerville to 
consider the situation, having announced that 
Hon. Jesse D. Bright would deliver an address and 
publicly condemn further coalition with the Free 
Soilers. Senator Bright did not put in an ap¬ 
pearance, but Morton and others spoke, denounc¬ 
ing abolitionism, praising the Compromise meas¬ 
ures, including the Fugitive Slave Law, and in- 

2. Born Nov. 22, 1805, Kentucky; moved to Indianapolis, Ind., 
and was elected Secretary of State 1836-37 ; elected to 28th Congress 
1843-45 ; Assistant Postmaster-General, 1845-49 ; re-elected to 31st Con¬ 
gress, 1849-51. Editor, Indiana State Sentinel. Died Mar. 18, 1857. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


119 


sisting upon a convention for the purpose of nam¬ 
ing a regular Democratic candidate for Congress. 
The convention was duly held in Cambridge City, 
its decision however, being against such a nomin¬ 
ation, which did not prevent the individuals thus 
overruled from openly espousing the cause of 
Parker, an unrelenting foe of the Democratic 
party for years, in whose behalf they labored 
zealously. 3 

Brown’s vindictive spirit was directly traceable 
to Julian’s having revealed his true character to 
Giddings and other Free Soilers at the time of 
the Speakership contest in December, 1849, and 
he now joined Senator Bright in stumping Wayne 
County for Parker. Morton’s antagonism was 
likewise not difficult to explain. A member of the 
Democratic party, this embryo political giant had 
denounced the Wilmot Proviso in 1848, believed 
in and accepted the Compromise of 1850 as a 
finality, and voted for that provision of the In¬ 
diana Constitution of 1851 excluding negroes from 
the state and punishing those who encouraged 
them to remain. 4 Born only a few miles apart, 
mingling in the same society, members of the 
same bar, Julian and Morton had been friends 
until radical differences on the slavery question 
brought about a breach which for several years 
had been widening under the favoring influence 
of politics. Totally unlike in temperament, both 
intellectually gifted and both ambitious, they well 

i 

3. Julian’s Journal, Aug. 5, 1851. 

4. Foulke’s Life of Morton, Vol. 1, pp. 30-35. 


120 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


exemplified two elements always present in public 
life and always at odds, and that their ways must 
sooner or later diverge was inevitable. Parker 
was elected at the end of a struggle quite as bitter 
as that of two years before, which Julian after¬ 
wards characterized as creditable neither to the 
chief participants nor to the methods of political 
warfare of that day. On August 22nd he wrote 
Giddings who awaited the result with anxiety: 

“Contrary to the general expectation I was de¬ 
feated in the late election. The Free Soilers 
stood by me with unsurpassed zeal and devotion. 
Some hundreds of Whigs supported me who op¬ 
posed me two years ago, and the mass of the 
Democrats were true; but they had among them 
a sufficient number of miserable Hunkers to turn 
the scale against me. I mention these facts lest 
you may imagine my defeat to have been in some 
way or other attributable to myself. I have more 
real friends than at any former period. 

“I am preparing to go back to my books and my 
business and shall lose nothing by defeat except 
a little mortified pride. Indeed I have found de¬ 
feat far less terrible than the apprehension of it. 
I do however seriously regret that the only dis¬ 
trict in this benighted State where Free Soilism 
was thought to have any vitality is now repre¬ 
sented by a man who obtained his seat by declar¬ 
ing everywhere on the stump that he was “in 
favor of the Fugitive Slave law without the altera¬ 
tion of a letter. ,, When you think of this, and 
also by how large a vote we have determined upon 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


121 


the colonization and exclusion of negroes you will 
be able to form some idea of what a pack of saints 
we Hoosiers must be !” 5 

To this Giddings replied: “Thanks for the noble 
fight you have made. I well knew you had the 
matter in you, notwithstanding your Quakerism, 
which by the way I begin to think is the best 
part of you. I had seen by the papers that your 
defeat was caused by a union of the Hunkers of 
both parties. I am pleased to see that your po¬ 
litical strength is unimpaired. We shall want it 
put forth next year in the most effective manner. 
I do not see that you should feel the least morti¬ 
fication at your defeat. We regard it as a triumph 
here. The times are developing our real strength, 
the strength of freedom. Those who stand by us 
now are reliable at all times. Your opponent, 
though successful now, will be ashamed of his 
advocacy of the Fugitive Slave Law before his 
two years shall have expired.” 6 

That other anti-slavery men likewise deeply 
regretted Julian’s defeat a number of letters bore 
witness, while there was general rejoicing among 
the friends of compromise who did not look be¬ 
neath the surface. From Kenosha, Wisconsin, 
Senator Charles Durkee sent this message: “You 
have suffered a defeat, it is true, in one sense of 
the word, but in the higher and more glorious 
sense, where truth always triumphs over error, 
you are really victorious, and will be so long as 

5. Julian Letters, Aug. 22, 1851. 

6. Ibid, Aug. 27, 1851. 


122 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


you continue bold and aggressive against the 
wrong. This temporary respite is designed only 
to strengthen you for a more valiant fight, where 
the enemy shall be entirely routed and driven from 
the field.” 7 And Sumner wrote, on taking his seat 
as Webster’s successor after a long and exciting 
contest: “Would that you were here! I counted 
much on your presence, and mourn the fickleness 
of your constituents.” 8 

In dealing with the decade of unofficial life on 
which Julian now entered, the first thing to be 
noted is his resolve to give up politics and devote 
himself assiduously to his profession; 9 and the 
second is his total failure to carry out this reso¬ 
lution. He reopened his law office, but the subject 
of slavery had so taken possession of him that in 
spite of all efforts to the contrary it permitted 
only a divided allegiance to the affairs of private 
business. In response to Giddings’ urging and his 
own inclination he attended a Free Soil national 
convention in Cleveland September 24, 1851, the 
object of which was to confer upon the general 
situation and the duty of anti-slavery men. The 
presidency of this convention was offered Julian, 
but his “foolish timidity” led him to decline, al¬ 
though he accepted the chairmanship of the reso- 

7. Ibid. Sept. 9, 1851. 

8. Ibid. Dec. 7, 1851. 

9. “I am done with politics and intend to practice law. But 
there is likely to be need for a Free Soil party for some time to come, 
and it may be that in 1852 I shall be again on the stump, battling 
for John P. Hale, Joshua R. Giddings, or some other true man. Cer¬ 
tain I am that I shall never desert the cause I have espoused.” Julian’s 
Journal, Aug. 21, 1851. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


128 


lutions committee and came away with renewed 
courage and zeal. 

In January 1852, he took the lead in calling 
Free Soil conventions in his own county (Wayne) 
for the purpose of encouraging independent action 
looking to the holding of a state convention a 
little later. It seemed to him that if men could 
only be aroused to a sufficient interest in the anti¬ 
slavery cause to grasp its real significance, and if 
they could be made to see the present position of 
the Whig and Democratic parties as alike the allies 
of slavery, their allegiance to these parties must 
be weakened and the cause of freedom proportion¬ 
ately strengthened. He spoke twice at a three- 
days’ anti-slavery convention in Cincinnati in 
April along with Frederick Douglass, the Rev. 
John G. Fee and others, and perhaps never were 
his words more pointed or prophetic. 10 He insist¬ 
ed that northern Whigs and Democrats by their 
espousal of the slave interest as a great national 
concern were levying war against the institutions 
of their fathers, who in their day took measures 
for the extinction of slavery in a majority of the 
States, whilst they believed it was rapidly per¬ 
ishing in the remainder. ‘They excluded it from 
every inch of territory then belonging to the gcv- 

10. “I was offered the presidency of this convention also, which 
I declined in favor of John G. Fee, but was unexpectedly appointed 
a vice-president, along w'ith Douglass, Bigg and others of different 
color. I am glad I attended this truly catholic anti-slavery gathering. 
I was delighted with the oratory of Douglass and with the man him¬ 
self, and feel much strengthened in my desire to overcome the ridicu¬ 
lous and wicked prejudice against color which even most anti-slavery 
men find it difficult to conquer.” Julian’s Journal, May 5, 1852. 


124 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

ernment [Territory of the Northwest] and limited 
to twenty years the importation of slaves from 
abroad, which they regarded as the life of the 
system. They were Abolitionists, though their 
process of abolition was gradual. But Whigs and 
Democrats today preach a totally different 
gospel ... If there are incendiaries in this 
government, those who would destroy the Union 
by building up ‘sectional parties’, they are the 
leaders and tools of these factions who are en¬ 
deavoring to make slavery and not freedom its 
cornerstone and to restore concord between things 
totally irreconcilable in their nature. If there is 
such a crime as ‘moral treason’, it is perpetrated 
by every Whig and Democrat who refuses to sever 
himself from his faithless organization and labor 
by every honorable effort to bring its rule to an 
end. Not for all the offices which this slavehold¬ 
ing government could bestow upon all the ‘Dough¬ 
faces’ from Maine to the Pacific would I commit 
my judgment and conscience to the keeping of 
either of these profligate factions.” 11 

Having established the complicity of both the 
leading parties in the sin of slavery, he next pro¬ 
ceeded to show the recreancy of the church in an 
equal degree. “The preachers and members of 
our Protestant denominations alone own more 
than six hundred thousand slaves. . . Even 

our tract, missionary and Sunday School associa¬ 
tions, those mighty agencies for the diffusion of 


11. Julian’s Speeches, pp. 78-79. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


125 


Christian truth, are under slaveholding espionage. 
The scissors of the peculiar institution must be 
applied to their publications, which must be so 
carved and mangled as not to send forth even an 
intimation that freedom is a blessing or slavery a 
curse/’ In answer to the plea that schisms would 
be created by any other course, he continued: “Is 
the church rent in twain when a religious de¬ 
nomination is divided? On the contrary, I hold 
that we should welcome divisions where they pro¬ 
ceed from an honest and faithful endeavor to ap¬ 
ply Christianity to all known sins. The unity of 
the church demands the breaking up of outward 
organizations when they espouse and persist in 
upholding a great wrong. Who believes that 
Christianity would be blotted out if every over¬ 
shadowing hierarchy in the land were broken into 
fragments? The cause of true religion, instead 
of being mortally wounded, might even be ad¬ 
vanced. The free spirit of Congregationalism, 
strengthened by the shock, might stand up 
stronger than ever as a breakwater against ec¬ 
clesiastical tyranny in future; for centralization 
is not less an evil in religious than in civil matters. 
The great body of the people, freed from priestly 
rule and strong in their religious yearnings, 
would gather together in smaller flocks under 
their chosen shepherds, and thus a free church, 
armed with every available instrumentality for 
good, would be found laboring in the cause of 
Christ, and boldly smiting every form of sin. 


126 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

“The church, I fully believe, is to redeem the 
race. But as in ancient days, so now, the work 
of reform must begin outside of existing systems, 
beyond the shadow of our ruling church judi¬ 
catories, among the great body of the people. We 
must not commence with the chief priests and 
rulers, who are always ready to crucify reform, 
but like Fox and Wesley take our stand in the 
midst of the multitude, who have no other interest 
than to find and embrace the truth. 

“If we make our appeal to them, and wisely and 
faithfully labor, we shall triumph. The ruling 
powers in church and State, like Pilate and Herod, 
may combine against us, but we shall be sustained. 
The strong blasts of the world may oppose us, 
but we shall be wafted onwards by The trade- 
winds of Heaven’. ‘One strong thing I find here 
below, the just thing, the true thing’. And a great 
consolation to Abolitionists it is, that few in num¬ 
bers, hated of the world, branded as fanatics, 
incendiaries and mad-men, they yet have a per¬ 
fect assurance, a faith running over with fulness, 
that an Almighty arm will crown with ultimate 
success their humble and sincere strivings for 
freedom and humanity.” 12 

One is not surprised, on reading this speech, 
that more than one person in the audience took 
it for granted that Julian was a minister of the 
gospel; and reflecting on the solid front presented 
by both the Whig and Democratic parties in 1852 


12. Ibid. p. 82. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


127 


and the apparent 'finality’ of the famous Compro¬ 
mise, it is evident that it required almost as much 
courage thus to arraign them as it had done to 
break away from his party four years before. At 
the State Free Soil convention in Indianapolis on 
May 17th he spoke in much the same vein as at 
Cincinnati, urging the duty of maintaining the 
Free Soil organization, not for the sake of the 
offices but in order to provide a rallying point for 
the opponents of slavery extension. 13 There were 
two kinds of Abolitionists. One followed the lead 
of Garrison and Phillips and insisted on fighting 
slavery solely with moral weapons; this class dep¬ 
recated political action, some even going so far 
as to advocate disunion and to call the Constitu¬ 
tion of the United States “a covenant with death 
and an agreement with hell.” 14 The other class, 

13. The Indianapolis newspapers paid little attention to Free 
Soil activities at this time. The organ of the Whig party, the Daily 
Journal, said of this convention: “The State Free Soil Convention 
was in session Tuesday with Andrew L. Robinson of Evansville in 
the chair. We noticed in attendance George W. Julian, S. S. Harding, 
M. R. Hull and other distinguished advocates of Free Soilism. Dele¬ 
gates were appointed to attend the National Convention to be held at 
Cleveland on the first Wednesday in August. (The convention met in 
Pittsburgh, August 11.) Of the delegates chosen we heard mention (ed) 
the names of A. L. Robinson, S. C. Stevens, J. P. Milliken, J. H. Cra¬ 
vens, S. S. Harding, George W. Julian, M. R. Hull, Ovid Butler, John 
B. Semans, H. L. Ellsworth, C. B. Crocker and'several lesser lights. 
Resolutions were adopted in opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law and 
the 13th Article of the State Constitution ; favoring the freedom of 
the public lands ; declaring that the anti-slavery party is not a sec¬ 
tional party, but for the Union ; and asserting that the Democratic and 
Whig parties had outlived the measures which brought them into ex¬ 
istence and that they were mere factions.” Indianapolis Daily Jour¬ 
nal, May 20, 1852. 

14. William Lloyd Garrison. 


128 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

hating slavery quite as intensely, would not in¬ 
terfere with it in states where it was already 
established, but sought to prohibit its spread into 
regions over which the general government had 
exclusive jurisdiction, that is, in the territories 
and the District of Columbia. They would have 
the government divorce itself absolutely from 
slavery by refusing to be a party to the recapture 
of runaway slaves. They believed that the insti¬ 
tution, thus shut in, could not long endure. The 
old Liberty party men of 1840 and 1844 were 
Abolitionists of this class. So were Free Soilers 
like Giddings and Julian. 

The great temperance crusade was then for 
the first time making itself felt in the middle 
west, and while in Indianapolis Julian delivered 
an address on the subject, by invitation, in the 
Hall of Representatives, 15 advocating legislation 
similar to the celebrated law of Maine. He would 
treat the dealer in strong drink with the same 
rigorous justice as was meted out to other of¬ 
fenders. “Let his accursed poison, wherever it 
can be found, be poured into the gutter along with 
other filth, whilst he is marched off to answer to 
the charge of a crime against society; and let him 
distinctly understand that when once caught in 
the toils of this law no art can elude, no arm 
can save, no hand can deliver.” The sweeping 
program then and there set forth by him caused 
a smile in later years, for he came to believe that 


15. Indiana Daily Journal, May 21, 1852. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


129 


the temperance reform was a many-sided one, 
involving the general improvement of the condi¬ 
tions of life and to distrust all legislation that 
lost sight of this fact. “We must reform our 
land policy”, said he, “and thus facilitate the ac¬ 
quisition of homes by the poor. We must curtail 
the remorseless power of corporate wealth. We 
must legislate for the rights of labor rather than 
the prerogatives of capital. We must educate the 
masses and equalize their opportunities. We must 
have better household training. The magnitude 
of the temperance movement in this comprehen¬ 
sive sense cannot be overstated, but it gives coun¬ 
tenance to no scheme of fanaticism. Its friends 
have little faith in any legislative short-cut to the 
virtue of temperance, but rely chiefly upon time, 
toil and patience in dealing with the essential 
conditions of progress. They comprehend the 
logic of their work and its inevitable limitations, 
and only expect the final overthrow of the fabric 
of intemperance by undermining its founda¬ 
tions.” 16 

The spectacle of the old parties in their national 
conventions “bowing low before their southern 
masters” and acquiescing in the Compromise 
seems not to have disturbed Julian. He had fore¬ 
seen and publicly foretold this. He liked to face 
an issue sharply drawn; under such circumstances 
his course was clear. But when he found men 
like John A. Dix, Robert Rantoul, Preston King, 

16. Unpublished Autobiography. 


9—24142 


130 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

John Van Buren, Horace Greeley and William 
Cullen Bryant, who had supported the Free Soil 
ticket four years before, mustering under the Dem¬ 
ocratic banner, he was both puzzled and dismayed. 
In his opinion there was more reason for out¬ 
spoken opposition than there had been in 1848 
when these men had boldly defied the slave power. 
He continued to give utterance to his convictions 
on every possible occasion during the summer, 
and looked forward with eager interest to the 
National Free Soil convention at Pittsburgh in 
August, which however he was prevented by pro¬ 
fessional engagements from attending, although 
he had been chosen a delegate at the State con¬ 
vention. “I am sure”, he wrote, “that those who 
go will ever after regard it as marking an era 
in their lives and a new baptism in the religion 
of freedom. I trust it will breathe fresh spirit 
into our drooping cause. I long to see the calm 
broken; it is becoming oppressive and suffocating. 
We must stir the stagnant waters.” 17 

This convention, over which Henry Wilson of 
Massachusetts presided, 18 adopted a platform de¬ 
nouncing the Fugitive Slave law, slavery exten¬ 
sion and the other Compromise measures and 
declaring that ‘emigrants and exiles from the old 
world should find a cordial welcome to homes of 
comfort and fields of enterprise in the new’, and 
that ‘any attempt to abridge their privilege of 

17. Julian’s Journal, Aug. 5, 1852. 

18. B. 1812; d. 1875. U.S. Senator 1855-75. Vice-President 1873- 
75. Author, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


131 


becoming citizens ought to be resisted with in¬ 
flexible determination’. It then proceeded to 
nominate John P. Hale of New Hampshire 19 and 
George W. Julian of Indiana for President and 
Vice president of the United States. No non- 
miraculous event could have been more surprising 
to the Hoosier thus honored than his own nomin¬ 
ation. He had expected that Samuel Lewis of 
Ohio, for whom the Indiana delegates had been 
instructed to vote, would be the vice-presidential 
nominee. He probably would have been but for 
the opposition of Salmon P. Chase whose enmity 
Lewis had somehow incurred. There is no doubt 
that Julian’s pleasure in receiving this distinction 
was marred by the consciousness of Lewis’ dis¬ 
appointment and his conviction that the latter 
really deserved it by reason of his long and un¬ 
selfish service. 20 He at once wrote Mr. Lewis 
frankly expressing his views, to which the latter 
replied : 

“You need not feel the least delicacy in refer¬ 
ence to any supposed disappointment of myself. 
I think I was first to name you and I could not 
be better pleased at the nomination. I have known 
from the beginning that men who labor as I have 
done in season and out of season, refusing to 
join any cliques for temporary or personal ob¬ 
jects, could not be favorites with politicians. . . 

An impression had been made upon a few dele- 

19 . B. 1806; d. 1873. Congressman 1843-45. U.S. Senator 1847- 
53; also 1855-65. Minister to Spain 1865-69. 

20. Julian’s .Journal. 


V 


132 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

gates from other states that the Free Democracy 
of this state was divided between me and a cer¬ 
tain gentleman, and that that gentleman and his 
friends would not support the ticket with my 
name on it. . . Again these same gentlemen 

assumed that Mr. Hale would not accept if my 
name was on the ticket because of my ultraism. 

“Your friends know and can tell you the terms 
in which I spoke of you to those who were 
strangers to you and how at Cleveland at a rati¬ 
fication meeting I appealed to my friends to vote 
for you as they would have done for me. . . I 

may or may not live to see our cause triumph, 
but in any event my name will be forgotten among 
the thousands who have spent their lives and 
estates in forwarding the cause of human liberty 
while those who have watched the signs of the 
times and shaped their course so as to fill their 
sails with the wind that we have raised will in¬ 
scribe their names on the pages of history as 
leaders in an army where they never fought a 
battle or suffered a sacrifice. . . 

“And in conclusion I beg you to believe me 
when I say that I am better satisfied than to have 
received the nomination. I know you had nothing 
to do with it and that if present you would have 
declined, and I now only want to see a heavy 
vote polled for you and a speedy triumph of the 
cause of human liberty/’ 21 

Julian was thirty-five years of age and the can- 


21 . Julian Letters, Aug. 19, 1852. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


133 


vass upon which he now entered was one of the 
most strenuous of his life. He not only covered 
his own state, but went into Illinois, Wisconsin, 
Michigan and Ohio, and on the invitation of the 
Rev. John G. Fee and Cassius M. Clay he also 
spoke in Bracken, Mason and Lewis counties, 
Kentucky. “I would not have ventured on this 
experiment alone ,, he declared, “but I felt reason¬ 
ably safe with Clay on the stand beside me, his 
right hand in the neighborhood of his revolver 
and ready for any emergency which the exercise 
of free speech might produce. 22 Some of the most 
picturesque reminiscences of his long life had this 
Kentucky experience for their setting. The cheer¬ 
ful fortitude of Mr. and Mrs. Fee as they accom¬ 
panied the speakers on horseback through the 
mountains in order to help swell the crowds and 
lend dignit}^ and prestige to the occasion, Clay’s 
blunt humor and his dare-devil spirit, the outland¬ 
ish accommodations encountered, and the even 
more outlandish natives,—all lent color to the 
narration. 23 

Three speeches a day constituted the program 
in this campaign, each from an hour and a half 

22. Julian’s Journal. 

23. The following lines entitled “Julian In Kentucky” are from 
some verses that appeared in The National Era (date and author not 
known). 

“Then Julian takes up the plea 
Beneath the aegis of the Union’s guarantee. 

And claims a freeman’s rights. 

With calm, firm tones, but with unsparing words 
He speaks of slavery as the bane and curse 
Of bond and free : with bold unfaltering hand 


134 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

to three hours in length, and as he traveled more 
than twenty-five hundred miles, by boat, stage, 
rail and private conveyance as well as on horse¬ 
back, the experience must have been extremely 
wearing. But so captivated was he by the cause 
he advocated and his desire to set it clearly before 
the people that he felt renewed daily. 

While in Detroit he was prevailed on to speak 
“at early candlelighting” to an audience of ne¬ 
groes. “Their large brick church, holding five or 
six hundred, was filled and when I entered the 
high oldfashioned pulpit and cast my eye over 
the crowd I thought it the darkest prospect I had 
seen in all my travels. I thought of the ‘dear 
Union’ of W. J. Brown- 4 and of what the Indiana 
‘Doughfaces’ would think could they look in upon 
the scene. I spoke for an hour and a half on 
the signs of the times, the moral aspects of the 
slavery question, etc. and was never more favored 
with the gift of effective utterance. Large num¬ 
bers wept like children when I portrayed the 
wrongs of slavery, and I could see that what I 
said was appreciated as it could be by no white 
audience.” 25 

He limns the giant monster and holds forth 
Its hideous front be foie its worshippers, 

And calls on them to cherish the foul thing 
No more. * * * 

Thus speaks he, * * * and lo, loud applause— 

Applause to Freedom from the votaries 
Of slavery—comes like the matin cheer 
Which, midst the darkness, tells the day is near.” 

24. See p. 92. 

25. Julian's Journal, Oct. 12, 1852. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


135 


After describing successful meetings in Chi¬ 
cago, South Bend and Mishawaka, he adds: “I 
was treated with great kindness by the Free 
Soilers in these places; but at Logansport, my 
next appointment, I was chilled by the coldness 
of the atmosphere on the subject of freedom. I 
addressed a miserable Hunkerish crowd in the 
Court House for more than two hours without 
making any apparent impression. The town is 
sunk in heathenism, and I was glad to take the 
stage for Indianapolis where I arrived next day, 
finding every corner of every hotel filled by reason 
of the State Fair then in full blast. [John P.] 
Hale had been prevailed on in Wisconsin to dis¬ 
appoint Indiana, but I found that Samuel Lewis 
had taken his place in a masterly speech in the 
hall of the House of Representatives which every¬ 
body was praising. After speaking at night I 
went to Noblesville, where I addressed a large 
assembly, though the town is in great darkness. 
At Westfield next day I spoke in the Quaker 
meeting-house and was gratified to learn that all 
the Friends except four are right on politics. I 
reached Indianapolis again on the 25th [October] 
and immediately took the cars for Terre Haute, 
where I had sent an appointment because Mr. 
Robinson, 26 our candidate for governor, had been 
mobbed in attempting to speak there. I found 
the town full of rumors that I was to be prevented 
from speaking and ‘Wabashed’ if I should attempt 

26. Andrew L. Robinson, Vanderburg County. 


136 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


it. I saw that my friends were uneasy and re¬ 
gretted my coming. They even advised that I go 
home, but I told them I was determined to speak. 
Accordingly at my hour I repaired to the Court 
House where I found a small crowd assembled 
with restless countenances and a gang of ruffians 
armed with brickbats. The crowd gradually grew 
larger and I began speaking, occupying an hour 
and a half in the plainest kind of talk. I told 
them I had come there because a friend of mine 
had been mobbed; that I desired to vindicate free 
speech and the honor of the town against the rule 
of ruffians and cut-throats; that there were worse 
things than mobs, one of which was submission 
to mob rule; that although they might go so far 
as to sacrifice my life, that would be a small thing 
when weighed in the balance against loyalty to 
a great principle, and that if they desired to mob 
me the way was open. But I was not molested 
and there was general joy over the result. Even 
the most timid grew brave and boasted of the love 
of order which had induced the people to stand 
by my rights. Vigo County is decidedly worse 
today than Bracken County, Kentucky, and but 
for Joseph 0. Jones, 27 the post-master, himself 
a Kentuckian, but a believer in the right of free 
speech and the duty of maintaining it at all haz¬ 
ards, it is probable that the mob would have 

27. Joseph 0. Jones, horn 1814, in Vermont. Removed to Ken¬ 
tucky, thence to Indiana, in 1816. Spent the greater part of his life 
in serving as postmaster for Terre Haute. First appointed in 1839 
under Van Buren. Also served under Presidents Pierce, Lincoln, John¬ 
son, and Garfield. Died, 1899. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


1 0/7 
lO i 

triumphed. My last appointment was at Madison, 
where I spoke twice on October 31st for more than 
four hours, and after resting on Sunday took the 
cars for Knightstown, reaching home by stage on 
November 2nd in time to consummate my labors 
by voting for Hale & Co. 

“I am now through with politics for a while 
at any rate and mean to attend industriously to 
my profession. I am glad to find quiet and repose 
with my family and friends, but I rejoice that I 
have battled as I have done. And after all I have 
seen, I desire to record the confident opinion that 
if Free Soilers will now go to work and organize 
as an independent and permanent party, establish 
presses, employ speakers, circulate facts, make no 
compromises, and stand unswervingly by their 
colors, we shall take possession of the government 
four years hence or eight at the farthest. We 
have the command of our own fortunes, and shall 
be answerable for all failures. ‘May God speed 
the right’.” 28 

Franklin Pierce, the Democratic nominee, was 
overwhelmingly elected, receiving two hundred 
and fifty-four electoral votes to forty-two for his 
Whig competitor, Winfield Scott; while Hale, the 
Free Soil candidate, the exponent of the sentiment 
that was to triumph in the election of Lincoln 
eight years later, had only about one-twentieth of 
the entire popular vote and considerably less than 
the party had mustered four years before. But 


28. Julian’s Journal, Dec. 5, 1852. 


138 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Julian was not disconcerted by this result. It 
was apparent that the Free Soil vote of 1848 had 
been largely augmented by those Van Burenites 
who were actuated less by anti-slavery zeal than 
by hatred of General Cass, and who had this year 
gone back to the Democratic fold. And he in¬ 
sisted that the true measure of the growth of Free 
Soil sentiment was a comparison between the 
results in 1844 and 1852, which showed that its 
strength had increased almost three-fold and that 
the outlook was encouraging. 

The vote for Hale and Julian in Indiana was 
more than double that cast for Robinson, the Free 
Soil candidate for governor. The national Free 
Soil ticket failed of support in only eight counties, 
while thirty-six counties gave not a vote for the 
state candidates. Joseph A. Wright, Democrat, 
was this year elected governor of Indiana for a 
second time. 

A severe attack of lung fever which laid Julian 
low for several weeks after the election gave rise 
to some serious reflections on spiritual subjects 
and resulted in the formation of a “plan of life”, 
embracing his physical well-being, professional 
reading and conduct, moral and religious endeav¬ 
ors, and general daily walk. This plan, minutely 
set forth in his Journal and quaintly interesting, 
he followed closely for more than a year, and al¬ 
though the details later fell into neglect or per¬ 
haps were not deemed of sufficient importance to 
be permanently incorporated into his regular rou- 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


139 


tine, the good effect of this soul searching and its 
results never entirely spent its force. 

In January, 1853, he was busy organizing Free 
Soil associations in several of the eastern counties 
of the State, and in Wayne County, township or¬ 
ganizations were effected and spirited meetings 
held. He again addressed the annual three days' 
anti-slavery convention in Cincinnati in April of 
this year, meeting for the first time William Lloyd 
Garrison, of whom he wrote: “He is no orator, 
as most persons define the term, no rampant 
declaimer driving onward by steam, like a Meth¬ 
odist minister; but such depths of feeling and 
eloquent earnestness I have never witnessed. I 
am glad to have seen and heard him, and familiar¬ 
ly conversed with him, because I may thus have 
borrowed a measure of that uncalculating fidelity 
to truth and that spirit of the martyr which have 
strengthened his hands in his unparalleled strug¬ 
gle during the past twenty years." 29 

The State Free Democratic Association (this 
name seems to have superseded “Free Soil" in In¬ 
diana) which met in Indianapolis on May 25, 
1853, was addressed by Senator Salmon P. Chase 
of Ohio and twice by Julian, one of the latter’s 
speeches being published in pamphlet as a tract 
under the title “The State of Political Parties— 
The Signs of the Times." 30 The signs were evi¬ 
dently propitious in his view. “A genuine, whole¬ 
hearted anti-slavery man", said he in the opening 


29. Ibid. May 5, 1853. 

30. Julian’s Speeches, p. 83. 




140 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

paragraph, “always believes his cause to be on¬ 
ward. . . . He is not blinded or disheartened 

by the irregular ebb and flow of political currents 
or by facts which drift about upon their surface, 
but he penetrates beneath to those great moral 
tides which underlie and heave onward the poli¬ 
tics, the religion and the whole framework of so¬ 
ciety. Abolitionists have often been branded as 
infidels, but I am acquainted with no body of 
men since the introduction of Christianity who 
have evinced so strong, so steadfast and so vital 
a faith in the fatherhood of God and the brother¬ 
hood of man.” 31 

After explaining the small vote for Hale and 
characterizing in telling fashion the Whig and 
Democratic parties, he insisted that henceforth 
the great issue must inevitably be between slav¬ 
ery and freedom, upon which issue the parties of 
the future must take their stand. Lie then showed 
how instead of obedience to the decree of the old 
parties three years ago that agitation of the slav¬ 
ery question should cease, the intervening months 
had witnessed more agitation than had been 
known since the beginning of the anti-slavery 
crusade, both in the professedly anti-slavery or¬ 
gans and in the secular and religious press. 

“Not long after the total suppression of agita¬ 
tion had been resolved on, a woman, having got¬ 
ten ‘out of her sphere’, wrote a book which has 
not only lighted the fires of agitation to an un- 


31. Ibid. pp. 83, 84. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


141 


exampled degree throughout the whole country, 
but has carried the torch to the ends of the earth. 
‘Uncle Tom's Cabin', the world's greatest mission¬ 
ary of freedom and the harbinger of deliverance 
to the African race, is the glory not less than the 
wonder of our age; and it is not strange that Mrs. 
Stowe should regard it as having risen ‘on the 
mighty stream of a divine purpose’. How many 
readers has this book in the United States? It 
is impossible to say with any claim to accuracy; 
but judging from the number of copies already 
published and sold and the avidity with which the 
work has been sought after by all classes and in 
all sections of the country, I think we may safely 
set it down at one million. It is more than three 
times this number according to the Literary 
World, which estimates ten readers to every copy 
sold. But I desire to speak within bounds:—a 
million American readers of an American book; 
a million men and women pouring out their tears 
over the wrongs of three millions in chains; a 
million hearts throbbing responsive to the suffer¬ 
ings of the slave. Is this the entertainment to 
which our finality brethren invited us two or three 
years ago? Could the most sanguine among us 
at that time have dreamed of so wonderful a 
progress? And this million readers of ‘Uncle 
Tom’ must swell into millions, and when light has 
thus found its way to their minds, scattering the 
mists which have so long shrouded them in cold 
indifference, and arousing our common humanity 


142 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

to a sense of the enormity of slavery, the triumph 
of freedom will draw nigh. The seed will have 
been planted that must bring forth fruit . . 

A great moral revolution can never go backwards, 
because the spirit which sustains it is the spirit 
of God. As well might we attempt to turn back 
the tide of civilization and blot out Christianity 
itself, as to control those quickened moral 
agencies that are undermining the fabric of 
American slavery .” 32 

His thrusts at colonization, the humbuggery of 

which he detected early in his study of the slav¬ 
ery question, are only equaled by the clever way 
in which he demolishes the southern claim that 
slavery is a noble missionary institution for the 
conversion of the heathen, and the effect of his 
words, scattered over the State, can hardly be es¬ 
timated. That they fell for the most part upon 
deaf ears by no means signifies that they were 
unavailing. His hope lay not in the immediate 
future, but in that slowly awakening public in¬ 
telligence that would one day look conditions 
squarely in the face and demand adequate action. 


32. Ibid. p. 90. 


CHAPTER VI 


Professional and Home Life—Throat Cut in Court 

—Fugitive Slave Cases — Kansas-Nebraska 
Bill—Julian Fights It—Campaign of 
185If.—Opposes Know Nothing 
Movement—Speeches in Cin¬ 
cinnati and Indianapolis 
—Letter from 
Giddings 

The idea of removing to Indianapolis had more 
than once presented itself to Julian. His wife 
particularly desired to take this step, and he re¬ 
cords in his Journal about this time that Center¬ 
ville is “the pink of dullness”. But early 
associations and a natural reluctance to leave a 
community about which clustered many tender 
memories combined to keep them there. The com¬ 
ing of the railroad in the spring of 1853 promised 
to give new life to the Wayne county-seat as in¬ 
deed it did. 1 He liked the profession of law and 
the records show that he commanded his full 
share of cases in the several courts in spite of the 
fact that during this decade of his retirement 
from Congress his attention was much diverted by 
educational work along political lines. Occasional 
expressions in letters and journals indicate that 
he appreciated the need of stricter attention to 

1. This was the Indiana Central Railway, from Richmond to In¬ 
dianapolis, now a part of the Pennsylvania System. 


(143) 



144 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 
♦ 

business with a view to providing against a possi¬ 
ble rainy day. But he did not belong to the class 
of which financiers are fashioned, nor had he any 
genius for accumulation. His tastes and those of 
Mrs. Julian were simple even for that simple day, 
and the social demands of Centerville were ex¬ 
tremely modest. Books they regarded as among 
the necessities, and probably their chief extrav¬ 
agance lay in this direction. Their reading and 
study together, upon which he always looked back 
as one of the pleasantest and most profitable ex¬ 
periences of his life, could be as well carried on in 
Centerville as in a larger town, the public library 
being a development of the future. That he had a 
natural bias for homefelt pleasures and peaceful 
scenes there is ample testimony; he liked to 
beautify his grounds and to work in the garden, 
and took keen interest in each acquisition of fur¬ 
niture and pictures, while the development of 
their little boys was a matter of glad concern. 

One of those curious instances of political pre¬ 
ferment that occasionally diversify American 
public life and are eagerly seized upon by those 
who are prone to rail at popular government, oc¬ 
curred in eastern Indiana in the early fifties and 
may well have furnished an additional argument 
in favor of removing to a less benighted commu¬ 
nity. This was the elevation to the bench of the 
circuit embracing Centerville of one Joseph An¬ 
thony, whom William Dudley Foulke characterizes 
as “a paralytic, an ignorant tavern-keeper of 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


145 


Muncie, who was unable to decide the plainest 
propositions of law.” 2 Anthony had been elected 
by a combination formed against Jacob B. Julian, 
the Whig candidate, and had the backing of Oliver 
P. Morton, whose opinions he frequently con¬ 
sulted, “especially”, says Mr. Foulke, “in matters 
where Julian took a different view of the case.” 
Anthony was not only ignorant of law, but per¬ 
sonally corrupt, and the court became a farce. 
Although petitioned by all but one or two of the 
lawyers to resign, and although the bar of Henry 
County refused to try cases before him, he dog¬ 
gedly held on to his position till legislative rem¬ 
edies finally terminated the shameful spectacle. 

Judge Anthony’s court in Centerville was the 
scene of an exciting episode on February 25, 1854, 
when Michael Wilson in an altercation with 
George W. Julian over a case then pending in 
which he was opposing counsel suddenly made a 
thrust at the latter’s throat with a knife which he 
had concealed in his sleeve, inflicting a three-inch 
gash that barely missed the carotid artery. Blood 
flowed freely, and Julian supposed himself fatally 
hurt; but although he carried the scar through 
life the wound was not serious and he was able to 
go about his business without interruption. Mean¬ 
while Anthony took a week to consider whether 
the act constituted contempt of court and then 
fined Wilson twenty-five dollars. An indictment 
against Wilson at the next term for assault with 

2. Foulke’s Life of Morton, Vol. I, p. 22. 


10—24142 


146 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

intent to kill was promptly quashed for not con¬ 
taining the word “feloniously.” The grand 
jurors having been discharged, the counsel for the 
state moved the court to recall them, according 
to the usage in such cases, so that the omitted 
word might be inserted, but the motion was over¬ 
ruled, while in another case, a few minutes later, 
on a motion to quash an indictment for a like 
omission, the court ruled that the word “feloni¬ 
ously” was not necessary under the new statutes! 
The counsel for the state then took the case to the 
Supreme Court on the question involved, and 
when an adverse decision was finally reached the 
statute of limitations had intervened. The his¬ 
tory of this affair would not be complete without 
the further statement that Anthony took a rule 
against Julian to show why he too should not be 
punished for contempt, to which the latter replied 
that he was undoubtedly guilty if it were a con¬ 
tempt to have his throat cut by an assassin in open 
court without provocation on his part; and to the 
general surprise this did not bring forth a fine. 
Such were some of the amenities connected with 
the practice of law in eastern Indiana in those 
days, and it is not difficult to see that party poli¬ 
tics, influenced by the question of slavery, played 
an important part in this as in sundry other in¬ 
cidents. 

A Fugitive Slave case that attracted attention 
about this time in Indianapolis was that of John 
Freeman, an alleged runaway to whose identity 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


147 


and particular brands oath was made by one 
Pleasant Ellington, who claimed him as his prop¬ 
erty, and by several other witnesses. The United 
States Marshal, John L. Robinson, with Elling¬ 
ton, had previously entered the cell where 
Freeman was confined and compelled him to ex¬ 
pose his legs and shoulders, so that it was possible 
to “swear according to the pattern.” But Free¬ 
man, although originally from Georgia, had re¬ 
sided in Indianapolis for eight or ten years and 
had many friends there who insisted on a con¬ 
tinuance of the hearing in order to enable him to 
disprove the charge. Witnesses were accordingly 
brought from Georgia who had known him there 
and who knew that he was not a slave, whereupon 
the case was suddenly dropped by Ellington, who 
fled while Freeman was preparing to bring suit 
for false imprisonment. An indignation meeting 
in Masonic Hall immediately following the trial 
was considered by Julian who happened to be in 
town, as too good an opportunity for “agitation” 
to be passed by, and he delivered a character¬ 
istically fiery address. Seated with him on the 
platform were the five or six slaveholders who 
had come from Georgia to testify for Freeman, 
and while he complimented them on their humane 
and magnanimous spirit he characterized in plain 
terms the Indiana Doughfaces who had sought 
to entrap a fellow citizen and send him into slav¬ 
ery, “I poured my shot exclusively upon the 
north”, said he, “as the real culprit in the guilt of 


148 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


slave aggrandizement, and was gratified to find 
that neither Bright nor Robinson would speak to 
me.” 3 

A case that engaged his attention profession¬ 
ally some months later was that of the United 
States vs. Waterhouse, the latter being accused 
of harboring runaway slaves. This too was at 
Indianapolis, and Richard W. Thompson was em¬ 
ployed to assist the District Attorney, while 
Julian was for the defense, taking occasion, as 
usual to arraign the Fugitive Slave law with se¬ 
verity. The case was remarkable for the rulings 
of the court and in being instigated by northern 
sympathizers with slavery. Waterhouse was 
found guilty and was sentenced to one hour’s im¬ 
prisonment, which he cheerfully endured in the 
court room. 

Julian’s interest in the anti-slavery cause knew 
no intermission. During the summer and fall of 
1853 he went up and down the State giving utter¬ 
ance to the full Free Soil gospel as he understood 
it, denouncing the Fugitive Slave law as an insult 
to the humanity of the north and servility to party 
as “the unclean spirit that must be cast out of the 
hearts of the people before they can be saved”. 
He then betook himself to Ohio in behalf of his 
friend Samuel Lewis, the Free Soil candidate for 
governor of that commonwealth. All this was 
laborious, for he spoke five or six hours each day, 

o. Julians Journal. Jesse D. Bright had been elected as a Dem¬ 
ocrat to the U.S. Senate in 1845 and served until 1862 when he was 
expelled on charges of disloyalty. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


149 


in all sorts of places,—churches where they were 
open to him, wagon shops, grocery stores, and 
wherever “the faithful'’ could gather an audi¬ 
ence, regardless of his own comfort, mindful only 
of the need and the opportunity. 

On returning from this expedition he took ad¬ 
vantage of a Woman's Rights convention in Rich¬ 
mond to invite Mrs. Frances D. Gage and Mrs. 
Emma R. Coe, two of the early champions of the 
suffrage cause, to lecture in Centerville, which 
they did to a large and appreciative audience, be¬ 
ing entertained in the Julian home during their 
stay. Had guest-books been then in vogue that 
of the Julians must have contained the names of 
almost all the reformers who visited the Hoosier 
State, for eastern Indiana, with its large Quaker 
population, extended a cordial welcome. Such 
visits were gala occasions, neighbors and friends 
rallying, eager to meet and converse with the lion 
of the hour who thus left behind a more intimate 
and friendly impression than would otherwise 
have been possible. 

Early in the year 1854 the slavery question, 
which both the old parties in their national plat¬ 
forms two years before had declared to be finally 
settled, was again suddenly and unexpectedly 
thrust into the political foreground by Senator 
Douglas’ Kansas-Nebraska bill repealing the time- 
honored Missouri Compromise, and leaving to the 
inhabitants of Nebraska the decision as to 
whether or not they would have slavery. Ne¬ 
braska was a part of the Louisiana Purchase and 


150 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

included the present States of Kansas, Nebraska, 
the Dakotas and Montana together with portions 
of Colorado and Wyoming. According to the 
Missouri Compromise all this territory must be 
free, being north of the latitude of 36° 30', and 
Douglas’ contention that the Compromise of 1850 
had superseded the older enactment was a sur¬ 
prise as gratifying to one side as it was abhorrent 
to the other. Probably no congressional action 
ever aroused such widespread discussion or such 
intense feeling throughout the country as did this, 
and when one considers its scope and its results 
one must agree with Rhodes who calls it “the most 
momentous measure that has passed Congress 
from the day that the Senators and Representa¬ 
tives first met to the outbreak of the Civil War.” 4 

It goes without saying that Julian at once 
sallied forth to combat this new heresy. During 
the term of Common Pleas court he circulated 
among lawyers and others a remonstrance against 
the proposed measure, Oliver P. Morton being the 
only man of any party who refused to sign, and 
for the ensuing three months he was busy oppos¬ 
ing, by public speeches and newspaper articles 
“the heaven-daring scheme to curse Nebraska 
with slavery after its consecration to freedom for 
thirty-three years.” 5 He thought he saw in the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill and the turmoil it produced, 

4. Rhodes, Vol. I, p. 490. 

5. Julian’s Journal, April 5, 1854. Wm, Dudley Foulke says that 
Morton and other Democrats prepared and circulated remonstrances 
against the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in March. Life of Morton, Vol. I, 
p. 37. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


151 


in the zeal of large numbers in behalf of temper¬ 
ance, a subject on which he also spoke frequently, 
and even in the madness of Know Nothingism, 
a movement consistently denounced by him from 
its first appearance in our politics, good omens 
for freedom, because it seemed to him all these 
made absolutely sure the breaking up of the two 
parties that had so long stood as the defenders 
and allies of slavery. He continued to address 
large anti-Nebraska meetings in eastern and cen¬ 
tral Indiana throughout the summer. And he 
felt encouraged by the manifest interest of the 
people, who seemed to him in process of self¬ 
emancipation from party trammels, needing only 
courageous leaders who should make clear to them 
the difference between the transient and the per¬ 
manent in the forces at work and treat the re¬ 
peal of the Missouri Compromise (for the Douglas 
bill had become a law on May 30th) as a sum¬ 
mons to the manhood of the State. 

Julian was therefore sadly disappointed when 
the State mass convention, made up of Democrats, 
Whigs, Free Soilers, Temperance men and Know 
Nothings, which assembled at Indianapolis on 
July 13th, contented itself with a platform which 
took decided ground on the temperance question, 
but as to slavery, demanded merely the restora¬ 
tion of the Missouri Compromise. As a member 
of the platform committee, Julian presented a 
minority report in favor of restricting, discourag¬ 
ing and denationalizing slavery to the extent of 
constitutional power, describing the repeal of the 


152 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Missouri Compromise as part of a concerted 
movement to nationalize the institution, and as¬ 
serting that this repeal exonerated the North 
from the duty of further acquiescing in and obey¬ 
ing the Compromise of 1850. In this he proved 
his kinship with the “Independent Democrats” in 
Congress, with several of whom he was in fre¬ 
quent communication, who in their famous “Ap¬ 
peal” of January 24th, had characterized the 
Douglas bill as “an atrocious plot” and an attempt 
to “open all the unorganized territory of the 
Union to the ingress of slavery.” 6 

The vote on Julian’s report was close, but the 
chairman declared it lost, and the majority report 
was then adopted. “The new movement,” said 
Julian, “is thus harnessed to a narrow and false 
issue. Every Doughface in Indiana can demand 
the restoration of this compromise, because he 
can expound it as the limit of his anti-slavery de¬ 
signs and as a mere rebuke to the Administration 
for disturbing the ‘healing measures’ of 1850. To 
restore it would be to reaffirm the binding obliga¬ 
tion of an agreement which ought never to have 
been made, and from which the first favorable 
opportunity of deliverance should be sought. It 
would be to go back by the shortest and cheapest 
route to the Compromise of 1850 and the Balti¬ 
more platforms of 1852, instead of forward to 
the platform of the Free Democracy. ... It 

6. This appeal was the joint work of Giddings, Chase, Gerrit 
Smith and Sumner. Rhodes, Vol. I, 441-442. Also Life of Giddings, 
Julian, 311-312. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


153 


would be to stab freedom in the vitals, while clos¬ 
ing up an artery in the slave power madly opened 
by its own hand, which threatened to bleed it to 
death.” 7 

He felt sure that had his report been accepted 
by the committee it would have been adopted, the 
majority of the convention being far less con¬ 
servative, in his view, than those who led them. 
The Temperance men in this body were satisfied, 
because the platform suited them. The Know 
Nothings of course were pleased, because the 
ticket selected was the one nominated by them in 
secret conclave the day before, as afterwards be¬ 
came known. 8 The anti-slavery men generally 
acquiesced because they were bewildered and con¬ 
fused. Indeed, many of them had gone into 
Know Nothing lodges, along with large numbers 
of Whigs and Democrats, and the Fusion move¬ 
ment was to all practical intents and purposes a 
Know Nothing venture. 

Although supporting the ticket, Julian never 
intermitted his efforts to enlighten the people as 
to the true meaning of the Nebraska issue and to 
warn them against Know Nothingism. It was of 
this period that he declared that he probably had 
not a dozen political friends in the state. In an 
article that appeared in The National Era in Oc¬ 
tober 1854 entitled “A Voice from Indiana”, he 
clearly set forth the issue as he saw it and the 

7. Julian’s Journal, Aug. 5, 1854. 

8. David Turpie, Sketches of Mtj Oivn Times, p. 153. Julian’s 
Recollections, p. 144. 


154 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

duty of anti-slavery men, arraigning them for 
their timid and shrinking policy and for failing 
to utilize a fine opportunity for promoting their 
cause. “The only specific issue on which the peo¬ 
ple banded themselves together at Indianapolis on 
July 13th was the restoration of the Missouri 
Compromise. The purpose of the combination is 
expressly limited to this single point in the second 
resolution, whilst the convention laid on the table 
two resolutions which were entirely unobjection¬ 
able, simply proposing opposition to slavery 
within constitutional limits. The restoration of 
the Missouri Compromise is then the issue. This 
is the stereotyped watchword and rallying cry of 
the anti-Nebraska forces throughout the State. 
Now as an anti-slavery man I do not like it. We 
should not desire to restore the Missouri Com¬ 
promise. . . . No. Let the broken compact 

remain broken, and let us say so. Let our South¬ 
ern friends understand that this is a breach we 
do not desire to heal, but that we shall march 
through it to the fullest assertion of our consti¬ 
tutional rights. Let us say to them, ‘You have set 
at naught your plighted faith to us, that Nebraska 
and Kansas should be free by ruthlessly breaking 
down the wall which guarded them; and now by 
way of redressing the wrong we have suffered, 
and as some atonement on your part, we not only 
demand that these Territories shall be preserved 
free by law, but that all territory shall be thus 
preserved, whether now owned or hereafter to be 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


155 


acquired by the Government; that not another 
slave State shall ever come into the Union, either 
from Utah, New Mexico, the State of Texas, or 
elsewhere; that the Fugitive Slave Act shall be 
repealed; that slavery in our national District 
(the District of Columbia) shall be abolished, and 
in fine, that the curse shall be hurled back upon 
the States in which it dwells, to live if it can or 
die if it must by its own local laws’. 

This should be our purpose, fearlessly avowed, 
if we are in earnest, and mean to build up the 
cause of Freedom through the treachery of its 
foes instead of secretly playing into their hands 
under a hypocritical mask. This broad ground 
has been assumed, substantially, in six or seven 
of our Northern States. It is the only ground on 
which the reliable friends of freedom can stand. 
Am I not justified in saying that we in this State 
are not availing ourselves as wisely as we ought 
of the present excitement, that we are losing a 
most favorable opportunity to commit the people 
to our doctrines? And is there not something to 
fear as well as to hope from the anti-Nebraska 
movement in Indiana? I trust the ticket nomi¬ 
nated on the 13th of July will be triumphantly 
elected. But will it be a clear and unequivocal 
verdict of the people in favor of freedom?” 9 

The Know Nothing or American party was a 
secret oath-bound order which proposed to ex¬ 
clude foreigners and Catholics from all offices 


9. Julian’s Scrap-Book. Exact date lacking-. 


156 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


great and small, and so to change the naturaliza¬ 
tion laws that immigrants could become citizens 
only after a residence of twenty-one years. It 
made its appearance at a time when the old par¬ 
ties in the northern States were divided and un¬ 
certain where to turn. Rhodes says that ‘if the 
anti-Nebraska members of Congress had compre¬ 
hended the situation, as did the freemen of Michi¬ 
gan, a national Republican party would at once 
have been formed and the Know Nothings would 
have lost a large element of strength.’ 10 This 
order differed in different sections of the country, 
it undoubtedly attracted men of widely divergent 
views, and for a time it exercised great power. 
Its deathblow was received at its annual conven¬ 
tion in Philadelphia in 1855 when the committee 
on resolutions declared that Congress ought not 
to prohibit slavery in any territory or in the Dis¬ 
trict of Columbia, and that it had no power to 
exclude any state from admission to the Union 
because its constitution recognized slavery. 11 

Julian seems to have had an intuitive distrust 
of secret orders, and from the first he took a de¬ 
cided stand against Know Nothingism, which he 
did not cease to fight while it showed any signs 
of life. When in April, 1855, he received his 
customary invitation to address the three-day 

10. Rhodes, Vol. IT, p. 55. 

11. Carl F. Brand, History of the Know Nothing Party in Indiana, 
Indiana Magazine of History, June, 1922. It is a curious fact that in 
this year (1855) the Know Nothing or American party elected gov¬ 
ernors in nine States and forty-three members of Congress. Daniel 
Wait Howe, History of Secession, p. 283. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


157 


anti-slavery convention in Cincinnati, he accepted 
only with the proviso that he be given carte 
blanche to deal with this heresy as he saw fit, 
and his unsparing denunciation of the movement 
which he believed had pretty steadily played into 
the hands of the slave power called forth expres¬ 
sions of appreciation from many who had at first 
deprecated any allusion to the subject. The fol¬ 
lowing passages convey an idea of the general 
tenor of this speech: 

“I confess to some degree of embarrassment in 
approaching the discussion of the slavery question 
at this crisis in its history. It has assumed an 
attitude so novel and peculiar in its relations to 
American politics, and is so complicated with 
strange and alien elements, that I can scarcely 
hope to present my views of present duty without 
giving offense to some, and perhaps arousing a 
certain antagonism among those who have here¬ 
tofore walked together as brethren. My task is 
a delicate one, and I regret sincerely the causes 
that have made it so. I shall however in the 
exercise of free speech and with that plainness 
which I am accustomed to employ, give utterance 
to my own deliberate convictions, holding no man 
or party responsible for them, and only asking in 
their behalf such consideration as they may be 
entitled to receive at your hands. 

“I desire to address myself today to anti-slav¬ 
ery men; and I begin by remarking that the 
grand obstacle to the spread of free principles is 
the lack of a just comprehension of our move- 


158 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


ment. It is not only grossly misconceived by the 
great body of the people, but many, I fear, who 
are set apart by common consent as its peculiar 
friends either do not understand or perceive but 
dimly its real magnitude. The cause of human 
rights is not one to be dragged down to the level 
of our current politics and confounded with the 
strife of parties and the schemes of place-hunters. 
It is not to be hawked about in the political 
market and advocated with a zeal which instantly 
expires when the temporary occasion for it has 
disappeared. We dishonor the cause and bring 
our own integrity into question when we suffer it 
to be placed alongside the comparatively trifling 
and ephemeral questions of the day, and to be 
dealt with as such, instead of elevating it to the 
dignity of a great moral enterprise to be steadily 
prosecuted whether honor, advantage and imme¬ 
diate success, or obloquy, suffering and present 
defeat shall be the result of our fidelity. The 
question of human freedom is not a question of 
one nation or of one race, but of all nations and 
all races. Ours is pre-eminently a Christian 
movement. Its grand idea, its central life-giving 
principle, is the equal brotherhood of all men be¬ 
fore their common Father in heaven; and its mis¬ 
sion is the practical vindication of this truth. 
. . . This is the only true standpoint for the 

anti-slavery party in the United States, and we 
should resolutely and unitedly maintain it in the 
face of all opposition. Principle and policy alike 
require that we stand on Christian ground, and on 


f 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


159 


no account should we forego a position which alone 
can render our cause impregnable and which is 
so much needed to cheer us under the many dis¬ 
couragements to which it is perpetually subjected. 
We are branded as infidels. Let us say to the 
world that we wage war against slavery because 
we are Christians, and that to us rightfully be¬ 
longs the prerogative of sitting in judgment upon 
the popular religion of the country and pronounc¬ 
ing upon it according to its fidelity or infidelity 
to the great doctrine of human brotherhood. We 
are branded with having but “one idea.” Let us 
reply that we borrow it from the New Testament, 
in which we find it appealing to us as the “one 
idea” of the founder of our religion, and that that 
idea is large enough to comprehend the moral uni¬ 
verse. We are charged with an undue measure 
of zeal in the advocacy of our cause. Let us an¬ 
swer that the system of American slavery is the 
hugest and most frightful denial of the central 
truth of our religious faith, the most atrocious 
libel upon justice and humanity, that now con¬ 
fronts heaven on any part of our globe. We are 
reproached with our weakness as a party, and 
sometimes our own doubting hearts whisper to 
us that our struggles have proved but so many 
failures. Let us remember that so holy an enter¬ 
prise must necessarily encounter every form of 
human selfishness and be subjected to those condi¬ 
tions by which every other good work has been 
retarded; that in the nature of things it can only 
keep pace with the gradual but slow progress of 


160 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

Christian principles; and while we thus learn a 
lesson of patience let us ever bear in mind that 
Heaven itself is pledged to the ultimate success of 
our sincere endeavors. 1 ” 12 

Referring to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of the 
year before and the popular argument against it 
as the breach of an ancient and solemn pact made 
for the security of freedom north of the parallel 
36° 30' north latitude, he said: 

“Sir, a thoroughly baptized anti-slavery people 
would have lost sight of any bargain with slav¬ 
ery in its unhallowed conspiracy to blast an em¬ 
pire with its withering power. I oppose slavery 
upon principle. I hold it to be wrong in principle 
for one man to be the owner of another, to deny 
him a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work, to 
rob him of the holiest ties of life and sell him on 
the auction-block as a chattel, to take from him 
his Bible and close against him the avenue of 
knowledge, to annihilate the institution of mar¬ 
riage and spread licentiousness and crime over 
the land. This I regard as unutterably wicked, 
independent of any compact by which slavery and 
freedom may have assumed to dispose of their 
possessions according to certain geographical 
lines. Hence I hate slavery wherever I find it, 
from the north pole down to 36° 30' north latitude; 
and when I get there I go right on hating it all 
round the globe wherever I can trace its slimy 
footsteps. I confess I have not yet mastered the 


12. Julian’s Speeches, pp. 102-104. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


161 


slippery philosophy by which some men loathe and 
execrate it on the north side of a particular line, 
and then transfigure it into all blessedness and 
beauty by the magic of a mere parallel of latitude. 
This cheap and popular method of hating slavery 
may do for an anti-Nebraska man, but it will not 
do for an anti-slavery man. It may accord with 
the frigid temper and technical ethics of the pol¬ 
itician and the Doughface, but it will not satisfy 
the fervent uncompromising spirit of the Aboli¬ 
tionist. Opposition to slavery as an outrage upon 
man and a crime against God, as an evil essen¬ 
tially infernal in its very nature,—this alone will 
avail us in any bona fide encounter with our 
southern masters; and this, I regret to say, has 
not been the controlling element in the late demon¬ 
strations in the northern States/’ 13 

Passing to the subject of Know Nothingism, 
which he characterized as a deliberately concocted 
scheme of the slave power to divert attention from 
its own wicked actions, he declared that its ap¬ 
peal was to the unenlightened prejudices and mis¬ 
directed passions of the people. Stealing the liv¬ 
ery of the Jesuit, it raised the war-cry against 
Rome. “No good cause has ever yet been helped 
by enlisting the devil on its side, because no man 
has been found wise enough to tell how to employ 
him without thereby fortifying his citadel instead 
of bombarding it.” 

Referring to the complicity of church mem- 

13 . Ibid. p. 106 . 


11—24142 


162 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

bers with slavery, he asked: “How is it sir, that 
the zeal of our northern Know Nothings is so 
strong against ‘Babylonian abominations’ whilst 
here we have a Native American Babylon upheld 
by our Protestant sects whose infernal sway over 
three and a half million human beings for whom 
Christ died makes the corruptions of Rome dwin¬ 
dle into insignificance, whilst it strengthens the 
arm of despotism and stifles the voice of freedom 
throughout the world? . . . Sir, I submit that 
our Protestantism should perform a lustration to 
purify itself from this transcendant wickedness 
before it attempts any new assault upon an out¬ 
ward foe.” 14 

No one who reads this speech can wonder that 
Julian was not a comfortable yoke-fellow for pol¬ 
iticians and time-servers. “Honestly active men 
in a country”, says George Meredith, “who decline 
to practice hyprocrisy, show that the blood runs 
and are a sign of life. . . . What if they be 

in a minority? Ghastly as a minority is in an 
election, in a life-long struggle it is refreshing 
and encouraging. The young world and its vic¬ 
tory are with the minority.” 15 

Practically the same speech was delivered in 
Indianapolis at the State Anti-slavery convention 
of June 27th following, and graphically sets forth 
his own attitude and the odds faced by him in 
seeking to advance anti-slavery principles in In¬ 
diana in 1854 and 1855. It called forth a reply 

14. Ibid. p. 117. 

15. George Meredith, Beauchamp’s Career. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


163 


from Stephen S. Harding, of Ripley County, who 
had been an early Abolitionist and was a strong 
personal friend of Julian’s, but who had been 
carried away by the principles of the Know Noth¬ 
ing party. At the conclusion of his speech Harding 
received long and loud applause. 16 In this con¬ 
nection it seems proper to cite an extract from a 
letter addressed by Harding to Julian on the 
latter’s election to Congress in the fall of 1860 
in which reference is made to this occasion: 

“In looking back on my not wholly uneventful 
life there is but one public act that my better 
judgment condemns: that is my consenting to act 
with that clap-trap organization that for a time 
overshadowed the whole horizon. You know what 
I mean— the Know Nothing tom-foolery. I got 
into it—I hardly know how—and was carried 
along with the irresistible tide, and found myself 
a member of its august Councils. I was sent to 
the city of New York, then to the National Coun¬ 
cil at Cincinnati. There the bubble burst and 1 
shook the dust from my feet, for I there learned 
from the haughty chivalry who sat around me 
that the organization was looked upon as a 
mighty instrumentality to forward the interests 

16. “The approval of the convention (of Harding’s speech) 
showed that a large proportion of those present were either members 
of the order or sympathizers with them.” Brand; Know Nothing 
Party in Indiana. Indiana Magazine of History, June, 1922. Stephen 
S. Harding, one of the earliest Free Soilers, was born Feb. 24, 1808, 
in New York, came to Ripley County, Indiana, in 1819. Appointed 
Governor of the Territory of Utah by President Lincoln in 1862, and 
served until June, 1863. Afterwards Chief Justice of Colorado Terri¬ 
tory. Died in Ripley County, Feb. 12, 1891. 


164 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


of slavery. This was to be effected by a universal 
disfranchisement of our foreign population who 
were declared to be anti-slavery in all their sym¬ 
pathies. This was not the feast to which I had 
been invited and I repudiated the whole concern 
from that moment. 

“But let this suffice: I only desire to say in this 
connection that you were right and I was wrong. 
‘A confession of faults makes half amends’. I 
know you well enough to know that this error of 
my life may find forgiveness. I never think of 
the time when certain men at Indianapolis cheered 
me so frantically without feeling that I was the 
disgraced man and you the stem apostle of right 
who in the dignity of his own conscious strength 
could well afford to retire from the confusion and 
await ‘the sober second thought’ of the people. 
You and I have both lived to see that day, you 
to reap the just reward, and I (as I trust) not 
less happy than you that it is so.” 17 

Julian continued his anti-slavery and anti- 
Know Nothing speaking throughout the summer 
and autumn of 1854. He was ignored for the 
most part by the newspapers, but received by the 
people with sympathetic interest and often with 
glad acclaim. He did not attend the Fusion State, 
convention in Indianapolis on July 18th, which 
was much the same as that of the year before and 
adopted substantially the same platform. The 
object, he saw, was to keep in the field the dis- 

17. Julian Letters, dated Nov. 18, 1869, Milan, Ind. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


165 


jointed and conglomerate army that had tri¬ 
umphed in the last contest. The hand of Know 
Nothingism, for a time skillfully disguised, was at 
length plainly visible, and it did not surprise him 
that in the local fall elections the Democrats were 
the winners. The victory of the preceding year 
was seen to have been only nominal. No solid 
foundation had been laid for future or permanent 
success, because it was an unnatural assemblage 
of fundamentally diverse and discordant elements. 

That Julian kept in touch with anti-slavery men 
in other states and had the moral support of 
knowing himself in accord with them is shown 
by letters. The following from Giddings dated 
Jefferson, Ohio, May BO, 1855, is cited: 

“You see we are battling the Know Nothings. 
We refuse to go into convention with them or 
to recognize them as allies. We are determined 
to have a Republican convention, and Republican 
candidates, without surrender, without compro¬ 
mise. ... If the Know Nothings abandon 
their organization and meet us on common ground 
we shall be happy to greet them as friends. If 
they refuse, we say, let them go. 

“This is our only course if we intend carrying 
the presidential election. The recent defeat in 
Virginia will be likely to bring them to a con¬ 
sciousness of their approaching disbandment. 18 
If we repudiate all coalition with them this fall 
they will be likely to be still more discouraged, 

18. Henry A. Wise, Democrat, was successful over Flourney, Know 
Nothin!?, the former emphasizing opposition to Know Nothingism. 


166 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

and if New York repudiates them, as she will 
next fall, and if New England adheres to her 
anti-slavery position, we shall have no trouble 
with them next year. Now we want to see the 
work going forward in Indiana. We must elect 
an anti-slavery and anti-Know Nothing president 
next year.” 19 

19. Julian Letters. 




CHAPTER VII 


Anti-Slavery Progress Slow—Pittsburgh Conven¬ 
tion — Julian's Political Independence — 
Friendship of Chase—Some Letters — 
Election of Buchanan—The Western 
Presage—Speech at Raysville 

Julian noted with satisfaction the steadily grow¬ 
ing interest in the slavery question throughout 
the North and counted the election of Banks as 
Speaker of the House of Representatives on Feb¬ 
ruary 2, 1856, after a contest of more than eight 
weeks, a distinct omen of good. His letter to 
Giddings of January 12th show that he kept in 
close touch with Congressional doings: 

“And so you are still battling for Speaker. 
What a spectacle! What a pitiful result of the 
great revolution of 1854! I predicted it and ex¬ 
pected nothing better from the accursed heresy 
of Nativism which skulked into our camp to di¬ 
vide our friends and break the force of our move¬ 
ment. It seems from the Era, Tribune, etc. that 
several of those who recently voted for Banks 
talk against him and are known to be opposed to 
him. I guess that one of these must be our em¬ 
bodiment of dough from this district. 1 His vote 
against laying on the table Dunn’s resolution in 

1. David P. Holloway, who represented the ‘Burnt District’ one 
term, 1855-57. 


( 167 ) 


168 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


favor of Leiter shows his lack of anti-slavery 
sympathy.” 2 

The fact that Indiana continued to show back¬ 
ward tendencies only increased Julian’s zeal in 
setting forth the whole Republican gospel as he 
understood it whenever the occasion presented 
itself, and it is a safe venture that he frequently 
made occasions, for “his was a soul born active, 
wind-beaten but ascending”, and each rebuff was 
an invitation to renewed exertion when a prin¬ 
ciple was involved. At a Fusion convention in 
his own county on January 26, 1856, some moder¬ 
ate anti-slavery resolutions submitted by him were 
voted down and their publication refused on the 
ground that they formed no part of the proceed¬ 
ings. The rejected resolutions were as follows: 

1. That we accept the name Republican Party . 

2. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise 
makes every inch of the national domain a 
battle ground between freedom and slavery. 
This issue we accept and we shall oppose the 
admission of another slave state and leaving 
any of the Territories open to the possession 
of Slavery. 

3. We propose a united stand of the people of 
the non-slaveholding States for the single 
object of resisting slave extension. 

2. The resolution of Representative George G. Dunn of Indiana, 
presented on January 4, to the effect that Benjamin F. Leiter of Ohio 
be declared Speaker, was tabled by a vote of 166 to 39. This resolu¬ 
tion was one of several efforts to break the dead-lock and at the same 
time thwart the wishes of the pronounced anti-slavery element which 
supported Banks. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


169 


4. That secret political organizations are in¬ 
consistent with the principles of free govern¬ 
ment and we repudiate and condemn the pro¬ 
scriptive and anti-republican doctrine of the 
Order of Know Nothings. 3 

At the urgent solicitation of his wife he left 
her and the very new baby 4 to attend the Pitts¬ 
burgh convention of February 22nd, where he was 
made one of the vice-presidents and chairman of 
the committee on organization, through whose 
report of a plan the new Republican party became 
a national reality. Among those who served with 
Julian on this important committee were his old 
friend Charles Durkee of Wisconsin, Owen Love- 
joy of Illinois, brother of the revered martyr in 
the cause of free speech at Alton in 1837, and 
Zachariah Chandler of Michigan. There were 
four sections in the report of this committee, the 
last two of which were of special significance: 

3. “The committee further recommends the 
holding of a Republican National Convention for 
the nomination of candidates for President and 
Vice-President at Philadelphia on Tuesday the 
17th day of next June, to be composed of delegates 
from the several states equal in number to twice 

3. Richmond Jeffersonian, Jan. 31, 1856. This paper says that 
Julian’s brother, Jacob B., was chairman of the Resolutions Com¬ 
mittee of this convention and that his uncle, Henry Hoover, made the 
motion to table the above resolutions. So strongly and persistently did 
Julian condemn Nativism that opposition to the order was called 
Julianism by various newspapers of this period. 

4. This his third son was “a splendid valentine” of that year. 
Julian’s Journal, Feb. 15, 1856. 


) 


170 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


the representation in Congress to which each state 
is entitled. 5 

4. “That the Republicans of the different states 
be recommended to complete their organization 
at the earliest possible moment by the appoint¬ 
ment of state, county and district committees; 
and the state and county committees are requested 
to organize the respective counties by Republican 
clubs in every town or township throughout the 
land.” 6 

Julian felt that the address and resolutions 
adopted by the convention covered the whole anti¬ 
slavery ground and rejoiced in the assurance that 
the false issue of the restoration of the Missouri 
Compromise was henceforth to be repudiated. It 
was especially gratifying to him to meet again 
his old cronies of the Thirty-first Congress, 
Joshua R. Giddings, David Wilmot, Preston King 
and Charles Durkee, all eagerly interested in help¬ 
ing to launch the new party. 

In a letter to the New York Independent dated 
February 29, 1856, he said: 

“The purpose of the convention to unite on the 
simple and sole issue of slavery was most mani¬ 
fest in its treatment of the Know Nothing issue. 
No Know Nothing dared to present an American 
plank for the platform or even to allude to the 
subject in any way. Of all the speakers, not one 

5. This was amended so as to make the delegates to the national 
convention consist of three from each Congressional district. Article 
by G.W.J. on “The First Republican National Convention”, American 
Historical Review, Vol. 4, p. 320. 

6. Ibid. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


171 


repeated any of the cant phrases so common a 
year or two ago, such as ‘America for Americans’, 
etc. Several speakers referred to the Order in 
terms of disparagement and disapprobation, 
whilst the Know Nothings themselves begged to 
be ignored, declaring that the lodges are disband¬ 
ing and the members from the North preparing 
to act in good faith with the Republican move¬ 
ment. It was in view of these facts that no dis¬ 
tinct ground was taken on this subject by resolu¬ 
tion, and this I must still regard as a mistake 
notwithstanding the facts recited. I have strong 
fears that the vile ‘ism’ is not yet entirely dead, 
and that its Jesuitical tactics will be actively 
employed from this until the 17th of June in 
putting Doughfaces and trimmers in our Na¬ 
tional Convention. May the Lord deliver us from 
the tender mercies of politicians and allow the 
people to do their own work in their own way!” 

The bold position assumed at Pittsburgh seems 
not to have affected the hesitating and timid In¬ 
diana Fusionists, and they continued, quite nat¬ 
urally, to regard Julian as a thorn in the flesh. 
“But I shall be with them to the end” he recorded, 
“and compel them to walk up on to a clean Repub¬ 
lican platform on the single issue of slavery or 
else go to their own proper place. There are 
some seven or eight People’s Party 7 papers in this 

State advocating the nomination of Fillmore and 

% 

7. This was the name now given in Indiana to that which was 
later to become the Republican Party. 


172 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Donelson, 8 whilst most of the other Fusion organs 
evidently defer to the Know Nothing movement. 
I trust that by the first of May the Indiana Free 
Soilers will break away from the vampires that 
have been sucking their blood for months. Success 
on principle is desirable; and the next best thing 
is defeat on principle: for then we have the foun¬ 
dation of a future success. A triumph this year 
by a dishonest conglomeration of odds and ends 
held temporarily together by various and diverse 
questions would be worse than a defeat. The anti¬ 
slavery cause would be prostituted and trampled 
under foot. If by fidelity to this cause we can 
incidentally get the offices of the country, very 
well; if not, the country is not yet ripe for a 
genuine triumph.” 9 

On the occasion of the county nominating con¬ 
vention soon afterwards, Julian, who had been 
studiously kept off the resolutions committee, suc¬ 
ceeded in carrying an anti-Fillmore and anti- 
Know Nothing resolve in the face of an opposition 
headed by Oliver P. Morton, D. P. Holloway, 
editor of the Richmond Palladium and a member 
of Congress, Solomon Meredith, recently back 
from serving as a delegate to the convention 
which nominated Fillmore, and Charles Test. 10 

8. National American (Know Nothing) candidates for President 
and Vice-President, 1856. 

9. Julian’s Journal, Mar. 5, 1856. 

10. The Richmond Jeffersonian called this action “a virtual sur¬ 
render of the combined forces of Wayne County Whiggery and Amer¬ 
icanism to the Abolitionists as represented by their embodiment in 
Indiana, George W. Julian,” but predicted that this would not be 
repeated in the State convention, a prophecy that was substantially ful- 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


173 




Julian was eager to see Indiana take her place 
beside Ohio, Michigan, New York and Massachu¬ 
setts, where Republican organizations on a broad 
anti-slavery basis had been launched. But al¬ 
though the name Rupublican had been given to 
the national party by the Pittsburgh convention 
and was already widely in use, the proposition to 
adopt this designation was expressly voted down 
in the state convention of May 1st, at Indianap¬ 
olis. 11 It was still the People’s party, and the 
Indiana delegates to the Philadelphia convention 
were the People’s delegates to the People’s con¬ 
vention. Oliver P. Morton, who had left the Dem¬ 
ocratic party two years before, was nominated for 
Governor and at least one man on the ticket was 
an avowed Fillmore supporter, 12 while both Fill¬ 
more and anti-Fillmore delegates were sent to 
Philadelphia and chosen as Presidential electors. 13 

The platform adopted was two-faced, harking 
back to the Fusion conventions of 1854 and 1855, 
and one is not surprised that Julian sharply crit¬ 
icised the action of the convention in a letter to 
the National Era , 14 Dr. Bailey’s paper at Wash¬ 
ington. His knowledge of men and of politics told 
him that an outspoken anti-slavery stand must 
become the strategic position of the party that 

11. Henry S. Lane presided over this convention. 

12. John W. Dawson of Allen County, nominee for Secretary of 
State. He was the editor of the Fort Wayne Times. Carl Brand, 
Indiana Magazine of History, September, 1922. 

13. Jacob B. Julian was a Wayne County delegate to the national 
convention. 

14. May 10, 1856. 






174 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


was to command the future, and he was naturally 
impatient at the continued shilly-shallying in 
Indiana. 15 

Julian had hoped for the nomination of Seward 
or Chase at Chicago, but entered the canvass in 
behalf of Fremont in August and continued till 
the November election, quite independently of the 
party managers, who ignored him as far as pos¬ 
sible and would have rejoiced to be quite rid of 
him. To the pacifists of that day, whose name 
was legion, he was a disturbing factor. But in¬ 
vitations to speak poured in upon him, many more 
than he could accept and he was everywhere 
greeted by crowds, the audience of 30,000 at Lib¬ 
erty where he and Cassius M. Clay spoke on 
August 9th, being the largest he had ever seen 

15. The following letter from Dr. Gamaliel Bailey to Julian is 
interesting in this connection: 

Washington, March 9, 1856. 

My dear friend: 

My clerk, Mr. Clephane, says you were pleased with the convention 
(Pittsburgh). What will you do in Indiana? Are the people there 
enlightened enough to bring up to the right standard? We have a set 
of timid, short-sighted men in Congress. They are afraid of Know 
Nothingism and are constantly in danger of temporizing with it. * * * 
Seward’s position is defiant—he will have no coalition. The mania 
for mere success has seized a majority of the members here, and to 
accomplish it they are already talking about taking up some new man, 
Mr. Availability. The people must look to themselves and not take 
counsel of their representatives. I want a man clearly and unmis¬ 
takably representing our movement. Chase has a future, (but) he must 
wait, I think. It is, I am sure, better that he should. Seward is by 
all odds the strongest man we could ran if his friends will let him 
be nominated. Preston King I would cheerfully go for, but he would 
not arouse so much enthusiasm. Seward’s nomination would relieve us 
it oocg of all taint or suspicion of Know Nothingism. 

Yours Truly, 


G. Bailey. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


175 


except at the Harrison meeting at Dayton in 1840. 
Of this meeting the Richmond Jeffersonian said: 
“There were in the procession two wagon-loads of 
ladies, one wagon filled with negroes, and fifteen 
colored gentlemen on horseback. Drunken Fre- 
monters were plenty.” But the Democratic press 
as a rule was not unfriendly in its treatment at 
this time, as witness the Columbus Democrat's 
reference to Julian’s fine appearance and able 
speech. “Much as we dislike his politics”, says 
this organ, “dangerous and destructive to our best 
interests as we are satisfied they are, we are free 
to admit that we admire the man for his independ¬ 
ent boldness in declaring his sentiments.” 16 

Towards the close of the campaign the opposi¬ 
tion on the part of the “machine” disappeared, 
and he was welcomed even by those who had 
sought to silence him. This was partly because 
the people evidently wished to hear him, partly 
because his very fearlessness and apparent indif¬ 
ference to the tactics employed against him armed 
him with a certain power, and partly because 
speakers who came from other States, men of 
national repute, inquired for him and it proved 
embarrassing to account for his absence from 
party gatherings. As for himself, he felt that the 
Philadelphia platform which plainly declared 
freedom national and slavery sectional was at 
once a complete vindication of his position and an 
open condemnation of his enemies. 


16. Julian Scrap-Book; only the year given. 


176 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

Salmon P. Chase had become the first Repub¬ 
lican governor of Ohio in January of this year 
1856, and Julian was in frequent communication 
with him. Chase’s personality appealed to him 
quite as strongly as did his anti-slavery principles. 
Albert Bushnell Hart, in his biography of the 
great Ohio statesman, asserts that Chase had a 
way of attaching to him younger men of ambition 
and ability with a view to using them later on to 
promote his own political fortunes. If any such 
notion was held regarding Julian it was certain¬ 
ly a mistaken one, for the latter was in no sense 
qualified for the service. His zeal in behalf of 
principles so far outran his caution that he could 
never have been a successful politician, and in 
contemplating his career one can but wonder 
that success in the practical sense came to him as 
often as was the case. Chase was his friend and 
had it been possible for the Hoosier to act on 
his kindly suggestions and those of Giddings as 
to a more conciliatory tone, it might have re¬ 
dounded to his own personal benefit, although 
whether or not his usefulness would have been 
increased may be open to question. 

On July 17th Chase wrote from Columbus: 

“Dear Julian: 

I agree with you in thinking well of the plat¬ 
form adopted at Philadelphia. Indeed I can¬ 
not but suspect that the convention builded 
wiser than they knew. I hardly believe that 
the majority understood what broad principles 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


177 


% 


they were avowing. The recognition of the 
constitutional provision denying to the govern¬ 
ment power to deprive any person of life, liber¬ 
ty and property without due process of law as 
a practical and effectual prohibition of slavery 
- in any territory of the United States is a point 
gained which includes, in logical sequence, all 
that is most important for us. It includes the 
denationalization of slavery entire. 

I now hope you will go actively into the cam¬ 
paign. Let our old anti-slavery men hear your 
voice, and make friends among the new. I want 
to have you as prominent as you deserve to be 
in Indiana. We who love the cause for its own 
sake must stand by each other and acquire all 
the influence we can so as to resist reaction and 
secure the future. 

Cordially your friend, 

S. P. Chase.” 17 

That there was anxiety on the part of freedom’s 
friends in regard to Indiana’s showing in the 
national election is indicated by a letter from 
Greeley, dated New York, August 27th: 

“My dear Sir: I am glad to hear from you 
in the tone of your note of the 21st. I hope you 
are right about Indiana, but I shall tremble till 
I see the two southern districts counted up. I 
am looking for this sort of vote from those two 
districts: 

17. Julian Letters. 


12—24142 


178 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

Fremont—10,000 at most; 

Fillmore—10,000 at least; 

Buchanan—21,000 fully. 

I hope you can stand this, but it won't do to 
have any more Fillmoreism in the State. You 
have a big fight before you, and one of the first 
necessities is that you realize it. 

I think our State good for 30,000 to 50,000 
over either Buchanan or Fillmore, and I cannot 
guess which one of these will be ahead;—prob¬ 
ably Fillmore would today, but I do not believe 
he will in November. They will probably try 
to combine against us, but that will be at once 
difficult and disastrous. . . . 

Yours, 

Horace Greeley." 18 

Julian knew even better than did Greeley the 
conditions in southern Indiana, because he had 
a large correspondence all over the state which 
enabled him to gauge pretty accurately the pop¬ 
ular pulse, and he repeatedly urged the sending 
of speakers to that section, but the campaign 
managers turned a deaf ear to all such sugges¬ 
tions. They feared to offend the local conserva¬ 
tive sentiment. Finally, in October, he himself 
went down towards the Ohio River, speaking at 
various points, one of the immediately impelling 
causes being the following letter which throws 
interesting light on the local situation: 


18. Ibid. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


179 


Jeffersonville, Sep. 19, 1856. 
Hon. G. W. Julian, 

Dear Sir: 

Your name has been mentioned by Democratic 
and Know Nothing speakers more than fifty 
times as an ultra Abolitionist in favor of every¬ 
thing offensive to the pro-slavery parties. This 
is done to keep people from voting for John C. 
Fremont. They are told that you and other Ab¬ 
olition leaders are for him and that is relied 
on in this pro-slavery locality to injure the Re¬ 
publican party. Dick Thompson 19 has just 
made a strong speech against Fremont to the 
great gratification of Know Nothings and Dem¬ 
ocrats. They are agreed on one thing and that 
is to sustain slavery and beat Fremont. Our 
party is growing here, notwithstanding the * 
odds against us. . . . 

I want you to visit us and that soon. Do 
not delay. Your expenses shall be paid. When 
you come, show slavery no quarter. Present it 
in its true light. Convince the laboring class 
that it is at war with our republican insti¬ 
tutions and opposed to their interests. If I 
were not a minister of the Gospel and pastor 
of a church here divided in politics I would 

19. Richard W. Thompson, born in Culpeper County, Va., June 9, 
1809. Began practicing law in Bedford, Ind., in 1834. Elected to 27th 
and 30th Congresses. Delegate to National Republican Convention of 
1868 at Chicago and at Cincinnati in 1876. Secretary of Navy under 
President Hayes. Director of Panama Railroad Company. Died Feb. 9, 
1900. 


180 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


take the stump in behalf of Fremont. What 
I do must be in private conversation and by 
the distribution of documents. In this way I 
have done a good work and feel assured that I 
have made more than 100 votes for Fremont 
and Dayton. 

Come and help us and if we are victorious, 
to God will be all the glory. 

Your friend, 

N. Field.” 20 

The election of Buchanan was not unexpected 
by Julian, who as usual was able to look condi¬ 
tions squarely in the face and to gather courage 
from the spectacle. “We had on our side grand 
popular demonstrations, in place of quiet individ¬ 
ual effort and small meetings where men could 
be reasoned with coolly. We had Doughface com¬ 
mittees, state and county, at least in Indiana, 
who blundered all the way through the campaign, 
which was conducted as if Republicanism were to 
triumph through the management of men who 
were ashamed of it. The old-liners had but one 
idea, slavery; we should have had but one, anti- 

20 . Julian Letters, Sept. 19, 1856. One of the points where he 
spoke on this trip was Columbus, in Bartholomew County, and of this 
speech The Independent of that town said (this was in October, but 
precise date is lacking) : 

“Had Mr. Julian been heard in every part of southern Indiana it 
would have encouraged our friends there and we should have carried 
the State triumphantly. The reason why the one-horse politicians be¬ 
longing to the Republican organization wish to drive Mr. Julian from 
the party is perfectly obvious ; it is jealousy of his talents and conse¬ 
quent powers.” 


Julian’s Scrap-book. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


181 


slavery, and a bold fight on that would have saved 
us. Another fatal error was our fusion with 
Know Nothingism. Southern Indiana was aban¬ 
doned to Fillmoreism and Old-Lineism, and the 
result of thus giving up the fight where it should 
have been most hot and incessant was the loss 
of a majority of the very men we labored so hard 
to conciliate. Fusionism has debauched and de¬ 
feated us. Far better to have been beaten two 
years ago on broad and strong Republican ground 
than to fail now in consequence of a deceptive 
triumph then, since our present defeat reaches 
into the general result, with all its conse- 
quences.” 21 

But after all, he consoled himself with the re¬ 
flection that the country was not yet ready for a 
real victory. Great progress had been made, the 
anti-slavery cause had at last got the ear of the 
people, and seed had been sown that must bring 
forth fruit in the next national struggle. He even 
went so far as to record that if Fremont had been 
elected the cause of Freedom would have been in 
great peril from powerful and systematic efforts 
that would undoubtedly have been put forth to 
render his administration temporizing and pro¬ 
slavery, a judgment abundantly confirmed by 
events and by later writers on the subject. 

At the beginning of the year 1857, a Republican 
weekly newspaper was launched in Indianapolis 
called The Western Presage, two brothers named 


21. Julian’s Journal, Dec. 5, 1856. 


182 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

Bidwell [Andrew and Solomon] being its spon¬ 
sors. They declared their object to be the estab¬ 
lishment of “a higher standard of public opinion, 
particularly on the subject of American slavery”, 
and asserted that if they could not succeed with¬ 
out compromising the truth, as many persons told 
them they could not, they would go back to their 
former occupation. 22 It is easy to imagine the 
joy that the prospect of such an organ must have 
given Julian, who was invited to write the lead¬ 
ing editorial for the first number which appeared 
on January 3, 1857. This was entitled “Peculiar 
Features of Indiana Politics”, and was followed 
by several others from his pen. But the dreams 
of the Bidwell brothers and the bright anticipa¬ 
tions of freedom’s uncompromising advocate were 
not destined to be realized. On April 5th the 
latter records: “The Western Presage is dead. 
It told too much truth in its short life to suit the 
chief priests and they crucified it. I fear Indiana 
is politically past praying for. The Dred Scott 
decision ought to arouse even our cold-blooded 
Republicanism. Nothing is so much needed as a 
genuine revival among anti-slavery men, com¬ 
municating their zeal to the masses and compelling 
politicians to defer to their earnest wishes.” 23 

The following letter shows Gov. Chase’s con¬ 
tinued interest. One can only speculate as to the 
subject about which he wished to confer, as the 


22. Prospectus in Julian Collection. 

23. Julian’s Journal. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


183' 


invitation was not accepted, for what reason it 
is not known. 

“State of Ohio, Executive Dept. 

May 6, 1857. 

“My dear Julian: 

So far as I can see the anti-slavery principle 
takes deeper and deeper hold upon the masses 
and demands more and more emphatically a 
true representation of itself in nominations. 
You must take the position that rightfully 
belongs to you in Indiana. By a firm, yet con¬ 
ciliatory policy you can, I feel sure, shape the 
movements of the opposition to the administra¬ 
tion in your state in conformity in all material 
respects with your ideas of justice and fidelity 
to principle. I wish very much that I could 
see you and have some conversation with you 
in the course of the next twenty days. Can you 
not pay me a visit? If you can, come straight 
to my house and make your home with me. 

Cordially your friend, 

S. P. Chase” 24 

This year was largely devoted to private affairs 
and to his profession. His increased family ne¬ 
cessitated an addition to the house, a vexatious 
and protracted undertaking. The failure of Mrs. 
Julian's health which followed the birth of the 
last child caused increasing anxiety, and a cloud 
that at times completely enveloped her husband. 


24. Julian Letters. 


184 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

He tried to put out of sight the inevitable and 
in this was greatly aided by her whose naturally 
buoyant disposition was reinforced by the hope¬ 
fulness characteristic of her disease. A horse 
and carriage were purchased and they took fre¬ 
quent drives, picnics were arranged, and every 
effort was put forth to snatch the joys of life 
which now seemed so fleeting. 

Beginning as far back as the year 1844, Julian 
was in demand at Independence Day celebrations, 
which consisted of processions, music, reading the 
Declaration, and addresses. These were occasions 
of much pith and moment, when people rallied 
from far and near, and they were likewise of 
immense educational significance. On July 4, 
1857 he spoks to a large gathering at Raysville, 
Henry County. His subject was “Indiana Poli¬ 
tics” 25 and a careful perusal of this speech will 
well repay the student who wishes to understand 
political conditions in Indiana at that time. It 
is a severe arraignment of her pro-slavery tend¬ 
encies, of her “Black Code branded upon her 
recreant forehead by a majority of nearly one 
hundred thousand”, 26 a telling rebuke of the timid 
and halting policy of the Fusionists of the State 
during the past three years, of their insistence 
that theirs is a “White Man’s Party”, and their 
reiterated protests against every form of Aboli- 

25. Speeches, p. 126. 

26. Referring to the provisions for excluding negroes from the 
State and for punishing those who encouraged them to remain. Art. 
XIII, Constitution of 1851. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


185 


tionism, a capital analysis of the Philadelphia 
platform as a confession of political faith appeal¬ 
ing both to reason and conscience, and a splendid 
plea in behalf of a genuine Republican Party 
founded on the anti-slavery idea. 

“Slavery must be abolished, and we must not 
be ashamed to avow this as our ultimate purpose 
as members of the Republican party. ... I 
do not say that we should make an irruption into 
the South to liberate the millions in chains by 
violence. I do not say that we should incite them 
to revolt against their tyrants. Nor am I pre¬ 
pared to affirm either the right or the duty of the 
national government forthwith to sever the re¬ 
lations of master and slave; for the overthrow 
of so monstrous a system, interwoven with the 
whole framework of society in the South for so 
many generations, however ardently we may wish 
it and fervently pray for it, can be accomplished 
peaceably only by eradicating the sentiment of tyr¬ 
anny from the white man’s heart, while we smite 
the chains from the black man’s limbs. The aboli¬ 
tion of slavery must be at first virtual and at 
last actual. The act of abolition must be a con¬ 
tinuous act. It must become an educational pro¬ 
cess before it can be realized in fact through any 
act of the government. It will take place in 
some states sooner than in others, owing to local 
and other causes; and our reliance must be the 
resistless pressure of a growing anti-slavery opin¬ 
ion, without which acts of Congress and judicial 


186 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


decrees are worthless. Whilst striving by the help 
of such opinion to brand slavery as a political out¬ 
law wherever found beyond the states which it 
scourges, and thus to stamp it with national rep¬ 
robation as did our fathers, I would inspire in 
the people of the free states a love of liberty so 
dominant and all-swaying, and a hatred of slav¬ 
ery so intense and unquenchable, that our brethren 
in the South would desert it as men desert a 
sinking ship. 

“And to this end, as the Constituion has long 
been moulded by the plastic hand of slavery into 
such shape as would further its own behests, so 
in our warfare against it I would invoke just as 
far as practicable the awakening humanity of the 
people in the use of all the constitutional author¬ 
ity of the Federal Government and of the free 
states, interpreted strictly against slavery as an 
exceptional interest, a loathsome and wicked 
anomaly, but liberally in favor of freedom as the 
source of our national life and the grand purpose 
of our national union. The system of the general 
government’ says Jefferson, ‘is to seize all doubt¬ 
ful ground. We must join in the scramble, or 
get nothing. When first occupancy is to give 
right, he who lies still loses air. In the name of 
the father of American Democracy I plead this 
principle, not simply in behalf of State Rights 
against Federal usurpation but in behalf of free¬ 
dom against slavery. We must not, we dare not 
slumber whilst this sleepless despotism is forging 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


187 


our chains in the name of the Constitution. To 
accept a defensive position now is death. To 
meditate it is cowardice. Our attitude, if really 

defensive, must be aggressive.We 

must make of the Constitution our citadel, our 
high tower. We must wrest from the enemy every 
‘doubtful ground’, and make it a bulwark of 
freedom. In view of the priceless value of liberty, 
and of the subtle, unscrupulous and relentless tyr¬ 
anny with which we are forced to wrestle, we 
must, in self-defense, seize every possible vantage- 
ground afforded by the Constitution and resolute¬ 
ly maintain it as necessary to our political salva¬ 
tion. . . . Instead of deprecating radical 

measures, disavowing abolitionism, and fulsomely 
parading our devotion to the Union, let us declare 
ourselves the unqualified foes of slavery in prin¬ 
ciple, and make good the declaration by the same 
boldness of action and uncalculating directness of 
policy which make the politicians of the South 
in this respect our fit example. 

“Let us tell them in point-blank words that 
Liberty is dearer to us than the Union; that we 
value the Union simply as the servant of liberty; 
and that we can imagine no earthly perils or 
sacrifices so great that we will not face them 
rather than buy our peace through the perpetual 
enslavement of four millions of people and their 
descendants. If we assure them that we love the 
Union, let us not fail to inform them that we 
mean the Union contemplated by our fathers, 


188 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

with the chains of the slave falling from his 
limbs as the harbinger of ‘liberty throughout all 
the land, to all the inhabitants thereof/ and that 
only by restoring their policy, and re-animating 
the people with the spirit of 1776 can these states 
be permanently held together. With equal frank¬ 
ness let us tell them that we do not love the Union 
so dearly prized by modern Democracy, with 
James Buchanan as its King and Chief Justice 
Taney as its anointed High-priest; and that at 
whatever cost we will resist its atrocious con¬ 
spiracy to establish on the ruins of the Republic, 
the hugest and most desolating slave empire that 
ever confronted heaven.” 27 


27. Speeches, pp. 149-153. 


CHAPTER VIII 


Another Fugitive Slave Case — Politics — Anti- 
Slavery Missionary Efforts—*'Mental Faith¬ 
fulness” — Reading — Rev. Daniel Worth — 
Nominated for Congress 1860 — In¬ 
teresting Letters—Death of Anne 
E. Julian—Spiritualism 

The last fugitive slave case in which Julian 
figured, and one of the most picturesque in the 
annals of the state occurred at Indianapolis in 
December, 1857. The central figure was a negro 
called variously Weston, West, and Wesley, but 
who declared his real name to be Thomas Ander¬ 
son. He had been captured at Naples, Illinois, 
by the agent of Austin W. Vallandigham of Ken¬ 
tucky, whose property he was declared to be. The 
slave-catcher with the alleged fugitive in irons 
had stopped in Indianapolis en route to Kentucky, 
when lawers for the negro, Henry Ellsworth and 
Sims A. Colley, George W. Julian and John 
Coburn took the case before Judge David Wallace 
of the Common Pleas Court and secured West's 
discharge on a writ of habeas corpus. He was 
immediately re-arrested by Deputy U. S. Marshal 
Jesse D. Carmichael and taken before U. S. Com¬ 
missioner John H. Rea upon a complaint charging 
him with being a fugitive from labor, whereupon 
West’s counsel asked for a continuance of the case 


089) 



190 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

on the negro’s affidavit that he was free and could 
prove it if allowed time to procure witnesses. But 
the Commissioner overruled this motion and 
granted a certificate for his removal, holding that 
the evidence established the identity of the negro 
and that it was not within his province to consider 
the question of his freedom or slavery, this being 
for the Kentucky courts to determine. Again the 
negro’s lawyers took the case before Judge Wallace 
on habeas corpus, and for ten days the two sides 
engaged in a legal battle which terminated in the 
handing over of the captive to the U. S. Marshal, 
“in utter defiance,” said Julian, “of the rights of 
Indiana as a sovereign State.” 1 

Vallandigham’s lawyers were Robert L. Wal¬ 
pole, J. Roberts and Thomas D. Walpole. Bitter 
personalities were bandied about on both sides, 
such as T. D. Walpole’s calling Julian at the con¬ 
clusion of one of the latter’s arguments “a liar 
and a dirty dog”, and Julian’s retort that ‘no 
gentleman and nobody but a coward would make 
such a declaration’. 2 John Coburn’s assertion that 
Commissioner Rea certified to a string of state¬ 
ments “as false as Hell” 3 is another interesting 
reminder of the improved manners of the present. 
Only the barest outline of the case is here given; 
there were plots and counter-plots, including an 
action against Vallandigham on the charge of kid¬ 
napping, and through all the proceedings “the boy 

1. Julian’s Journal, Jan. 5, 1858. 

2. Indianapolis Daily Journal, Dec. 7, 1857. 

3. Indianapolis Daily Sentinel, Dec. 7, 1857. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


191 


West” appeared as the half dazed and helpless 
cause of an excitement which drew large audi¬ 
ences to the scene day after day. 

Vallandigham, who had come up from Ken¬ 
tucky to lend assistance in the case, and who evi¬ 
dently realized that slave holders and their agents 
were not popular in the Hoosier capital, asked for 
an extraordinary guard to escort his party beyond 
the borders of Indiana, and a posse of forty armed 
deputies was appointed to assist deputy U. S. 
Marshals Carmichael and George McOuatt in 
their mission. That public opinion was largely 
on the side of West was shown by the immense 
crowds at the railway station on his departure, 
also by the fact that there were obstructions on 
the railroad at two points within ten miles of 
Indianapolis, and by the further fact that the 
brakeman who went upon the platform to release 
the brake was hit by “a missile in the hands of 
some Black Republican in ambush.” 4 The Senti¬ 
nel is likewise authority for the statement that it 
cost Dr. Vallandigham $750.00 to ‘get his nigger 
home’, after an absence of three years; for he had 
hired him out as a fireman on a Kentucky River 
boat in 1854 and had not seen him since. 

One scene of this drama which had in it an ele¬ 
ment of comedy was thus described by Julian 
many years later: “The counsel for the negro, 
with some dozen or more who joined us, resolved 
upon one further effort to save him. The project 


4. Ibid. Dec. 8, 1857. 


192 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

was that two or three men selected for the pur¬ 
pose were to ask of the jailer the privilege of see¬ 
ing West the next morning in order to bid him 
good-bye, and while one of the party should en¬ 
gage the jailer in conversation the negro was to 
make for the door, mount a horse hitched near 
by, and escape. The enterprise had a favorable 
beginning. The negro got out, mounted a horse, 
and might have escaped if he had been a good 
horseman; but he was awkward and clumsy to the 
last degree, and unfortunately got on the wrong 
horse, a very poor traveller, and when he saw the 
jailer in pursuit, and heard the report of his re¬ 
volver, he surrendered and was at once escorted 
south. This is the only penitentiary offense of 
which I have been guilty and I now confess it, 
although I had no disposition to do so at the 
time.” 5 

The action of the Indiana Republican conven¬ 
tion on March 4, 1858, in refusing to stand by the 
Philadelphia platform and in endorsing the prin¬ 
ciple of popular sovereignty in the territories, 
Julian regarded as “a shameless retreat in the 
face of an advancing foe” and predicted disas¬ 
trous results. For months he had done his best 
by means of letters, in conversation, and publicly 
whenever the occasion presented itself, to inform 
the people in regard to the critical situation:— 
the wickedness of Douglas’ doctrine of popular 
sovereignty, the danger that Kansas would be ad- 


5. Unpublished Autobiography. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


193 


mitted with her Lecompton Constitution sanction¬ 
ing slavery, and that the North would again be 
frightened into submission by the cry of disunion. 
He insisted that Morton’s rulings as chairman of 
the convention were unfair, and that the real con¬ 
victions of the delegates were overborne by the 
politicians in control. “It seems impossible for 
our leaders to profit by past mistakes or to be 
weaned from the besetting infatuation of suppos¬ 
ing that the success of our cause depends upon 
artfully evading or concealing the issues which 
give it all its real strength.” 6 

On reading the platform adopted by this con¬ 
vention, the speeches of the wheel-horses of the 
party, and the deliverances of the newspapers of 
the period, one is forced to admit that clear-cut 
utterances did not characterize the Republicanism 
of the state, and that the chief aim of the party 
appeared to be to place the Democratic adminis¬ 
tration in the worst possible light. This is con¬ 
firmed by the statement of a recent investigator 
to the effect that “the Republicans (of Indiana in 
1858) were more of an opposition party than a 
party with definite principles.” 7 

That Julian was not without support in his 
position is shown by the determination of friends 
that he should seek the Republican nomination for 
Congress in his district this year, a venture in 
which he would probably have been successful but 

6. Julian’s Journal, April 5, 1858. 

7. Charles Zimmerman, Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. XIII, 
p. 361. 


13—24142 


194 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

for the scheme of opposing candidates, engineered 
by those local politicians to whom his positive 
views were an abomination, in adjourning the 
convention to a later date in order that a combi¬ 
nation might be effected against him. Burdened 
in mind by his wife’s condition, he yet made a 
canvass, which he considered worth while in that 
it kept before the people the real issues confront¬ 
ing the country. Although defeated for the nomi¬ 
nation, he was on the stump till the State elec¬ 
tion, being the only Republican of prominence in 
the district who made an extensive campaign. 
Morton delivered but one speech after the Con¬ 
gressional nomination, although he had been ac¬ 
tive in preventing that honor from going to 
Julian. The latter considered the defeat of the 
Republican State ticket as directly traceable to 
the halting and cowardly tactics of the State con¬ 
vention. “On March 4th, we refused to affirm 
the duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in the 
Territories in order to secure anti-Lecompton 
votes. We did not get them, and our defeat is 
coupled with the profitless abandonment of our 
principles . . . 

“The administration is overwhelmingly routed 
in the October and November elections. Buchan¬ 
an is unmistakably Tylerized. The triumph in 
New York is glorious, for it was achieved in spite 
of Know Nothingism and in an honest struggle 
for Republican principles. Seward now stands 
higher than ever, and his recent speech at 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


195 


Rochester may make him the rallying-point for 
radical Republicans in 1860. The one drawback 
to the general rejoicing over the downfall of the 
administration is the success of Douglas over Lin¬ 
coln in Illinois. This is deeply to be regretted, 
for it rescues an altogether used-up demagogue 
from his merited political grave and fixes him as 
the candidate of the slave power for 1860; and a 

i 

most formidable one he will be. His triumph is 
partly the fault of the Republicans in petting him 
at first, and partly the fault of Lincoln in trifling 
with the anti-slavery men of his State. However 
afflicting to Buchanan, Douglas’ success is a pro¬ 
slavery victory of the worst possible character 
and is lamentable.” 8 

During the closing weeks of this year Julian 
contributed a number of articles to the True Re¬ 
publican , a Centerville newspaper recently ac¬ 
quired and now edited by his younger brother, 
Isaac Hoover Julian. The titles of some of these 
indicate their purport,—“The Triumph of Doug¬ 
las: Its Bitter Fruit”, “The Cincinnati Gazette— 
Admission of Free States”, “The New York 
Tribune and the Presidency”. It is easy to see 
that although interested to some exent in state 
and county politics Julian’s viewpoint was largely 
determined by national rather than local issues. 

8. Julian’s Journal, Dec. 5, 1858. Rhodes explains Lincoln’s fail¬ 
ure to measure up to the full Republican stature at this time by the 
statement that he had “never been through the Free Soil stage’’, but 
had acquiesced in the Compromise of 1850, the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise being necessary to determine him to gauge political action 
by the slavery question. Vol. II, p. 327. 


196 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


A great struggle was on, a contest between two 
civilizations, and he had taken a definite position, 
determined by convictions which were absolute, 
precluding appeal. His ambition was that Indi¬ 
ana should array herself with the forces of 
‘Righteousness’, and to this end the people must 
understand the situation. This was far more im¬ 
portant in his eyes than that Republicans should 
secure office. 9 

That men of his type in other States were car¬ 
rying on kindred educational propaganda is indi¬ 
cated by a letter from Giddings of January 2, 
1859, in which he writes of a tour he is about to 
undertake in the southern part of Ohio “for the 
purpose of bringing up our Republicans who are 
wanting rigidity in the spinal column.” 10 Gid¬ 
dings had the advantage of Julian in being nat¬ 
urally more genial and less combative. He took 
life more gaily. With quite as much firmness and 
unbendingness when it came to a matter of prin¬ 
ciple, he was more lenient in his methods and 
made fewer personal enemies. However, it must 
be remembered that Giddings had an altogether 
different constituency with which to deal. The 
Western Reserve was a New England community, 
of unusual intelligence and naturally anti-slavery 
in their views, while eastern Indiana held a con¬ 
siderable number of transplanted southerners, 
men accustomed to more primitive manners and 

9. Lew Wallace, in his Autobiography, p. 232, says that Julian 
“was from first to last more an enemy of slavery than a Republican”. 

10. Julian Letters. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


197 


modes of thought, who regained slavery with in¬ 
difference. Of course this characterization does 
not include the Quakers, who, although many of 
them came from North Carolina, belonged to a 
superior class morally, and among whom Julian's 
strongest supporters were found. His respect for 
Quakers was always marked, and their intelligent 
sympathy and help in his numerous fights perhaps 
constituted his chief outward reliance. 

The year 1859, was occupied largely with pro¬ 
fessional and home duties, interspersed by a few 
political speeches and some miscellaneous ad¬ 
dresses, one of the most popular being on “Mental 
Faithfulness”. Business was increasingly good 
and several weeks were spent in the preparation 
of briefs of cases for the Supreme Court. The 
passing of his old Congressional antagonist, 
Samuel W. Parker, called forth serious reflec¬ 
tions, and the deaths of Dr. Bailey of the National 
Era and of Horace Mann were set down as per¬ 
sonal as well as political bereavements. He re¬ 
joiced when Iowa joined Ohio in reaffirming the 
Philadelphia platform, and when Maine, New 
Hampshire and Vermont followed suit. The 
numerous celebrations of the anniversary of 
Jefferson’s birth this year were gratifying too, for 
he believed devoutly in the fundamental principles 
of government enunciated by our third President 
and rejoiced that they were thus called to pub¬ 
lic attention. In pocket note-books prepared for 
use in every political campaign are numerous quo¬ 
tations from Jefferson and Madison, showing how 


198 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

thoroughly he had familiarized himself with those 
principles which he used with telling force to con¬ 
demn the party claiming Madison and Jefferson 
as its patron saints. 

Among the books read with Mrs. Julian at this 
time were the Experiences of Theodore Parker as 
a Minister, Dr. Priestley’s Corruptions of Chris¬ 
tianity, and the writings of James Martineau, 
with such lighter fare as “the inimitable articles 
of the Professor” in The Atlantic Monthly. 

The startling raid of John Brown at Harper’s 
Ferry, in October, the expulsion of Rev. John G. 
Fee and his associates from Kentucky because of 
their anti-slavery testimonies, the driving out of 
Texas of members of the Methodist Church 
North, and the imprisonment of Rev. Daniel 
Worth in North Carolina for circulating Helper’s 
Impending Crisis showed, he thought, that slav¬ 
ery was to have a much speedier end than had 
heretofore seemed probable and that “in blood if 
not peaceably through the ballot-box the close of 
this colossal iniquity draws nigh”. With John 
Brown, Julian had no personal acquaintance, and 
in common with the great majority of people 
everywhere he was shocked at the madness of his 
desperate undertaking, but Brown’s heroic atti¬ 
tude in the face of death excited his admiration, 
as recorded in Political Recollections. And he 
seems to have felt intuitively that the whole affair 
was a link in the chain of evidence by which slav¬ 
ery was being condemned and repudiated. Both 
Fee and Worth were personal friends with whom 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


he was in correspondence at intervals, and a let¬ 
ter from the latter seems to belong here, as it il¬ 
lustrates the character of many of the men who 
were enlisted in the great anti-slavery crusade: 

“In Prison, Greensboro, N. C. Feb. 6, 1860 
“Hon. Geo. W. Julian 
My dear Friend: 

Your line addressed me at this place reached me 
some days ago, but the inclemency of wintry 
weather in a jail has precluded the use of a pen 
until this morning. I most sincerely thank you 
for your kind remembrance of me as a fellow la¬ 
borer in the days of other years in the great cause 
of humanity; but more especially does your warm 
sympathy meet my needs in this my trial hour. 
At sixty-five a prison is but a dreary abode, trav¬ 
elling the down hill of life with accompanying 
physical infirmities. Yet I have my consolations. 
Though prosecuted as a criminal, faithful con¬ 
science witnesses that I have intended wrong to 
none; neither has any injury accrued to any, to 
master or slave, as far as I know, in consequence 
of my labors in Carolina. Yes, I have consola¬ 
tions :—that under God’s grace and as I trust with 
His divine approval, I have been endeavoring in 
my small measure to make the world a little bet¬ 
ter. Though almost excluded from society (ex¬ 
cept my prison associates, and I could wish entire 
seclusion from them rather than be compelled to 
hear their horrid oaths and blasphemies) yet how 
much better is mine than the case of Selkirk on 
his lonely island! Yet even in his case the saintly 


INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Cowper finds cause of gratitude, and even puts 
in his mouth the words of thankfulness couched 
in those beautiful lines, 

‘There is mercy in every place, 

And mercy, encouraging thought, 

Gives even affliction a grace, 

And reconciles man to his lot.’ 

“You will probably wish to know something of 
the character of my case. It has sometimes been 
mis-stated in the papers. I am indicted in two 
counties under two sections of the criminal code. 
First, for circulating books deemed incendiary, 
second, for words spoken which it is alleged ‘ex¬ 
cite in slaves and free negroes a spirit of insur¬ 
rection, conspiracy or rebellion\ These charges 
will probably form two counts in each indictment. 
If convicted under the first, the penalty is im¬ 
prisonment not less than one year, and whipping 
and pillory at the discretion of the Court for the 
first offense; second offense death. If convicted 
of inciting slaves by words spoken, the penalty is 
for the first offense thirty-nine lashes; second, 
death. You see these are tremendous penalties. 
Of this last, my attorneys do not think me in 
much danger. The book, Helper’s Impending 
Crisis, is the greatest danger. My lawyers rely 
on the fact that the book was never offered to a 
slave or free negro, and therefore cannot fill the 
statute, as the slave could not be made discon¬ 
tented with his bondage nor the free negro with 
his social condition by a book which they had 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


201 


never seen. The whole case will turn upon this 
point. Others are indicted as well as myself. The 
first case comes for trial on the fourth Monday in 
March, the next, fourth Monday in April. 
Friends will inquire of you perhaps; [and] you 
can show them this letter or use it otherwise at 
your discretion. Letters of Christian feeling and 
sympathy from old friends are earnestly solicited, 
only let them be moderate in tone, otherwise they 
will do more hurt than good. 

Truly your sincere friend and brother in bonds, 

D. Worth. 

P. S. Should be pleased with a line from you at 
any time.” 11 

It is not known what part Julian took in this* 
case, but he probably rendered such assistance 
as lay in his power. A number of letters remain 
to testify to the close and friendly relations exist¬ 
ing between him and Mr. Fee and to the saintly 
bearing of the latter under all circumstances. 12 


Towards the close of the year 1859 Julian had 
the misfortune one night to walk into an open 
ditch four feet deep on his way to the Richmond 
railway station, causing a sprain which disabled 
him for months at a time when he could least 

11. Ibid. 

12. Some thirty-five years later Mr. Fee with his faithful and 
valiant wife, both aged only in years, paid a visit to Julian, and the 
conversations of the three survivors of those early and strenuous days 
were worth going far to hear. 


202 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

afford to be idle. Court was in session, his ap¬ 
proaching campaign (for it was well understood 
that he was again to seek the Congressional nomi¬ 
nation) demanded attention, and debts were 
accumulating. He never bore physical suffering 
with any meekness, and his account of this period 
of enforced idleness and the various remedies em¬ 
ployed, among them magnetism three times a day 
and finally “the laying on of hands” by an eccen¬ 
tric character named Jonathan Huddleston, a 
spiritualist, is amusing. As in 1849, he survived 
the several assaults of the medical profession and 
other remedial agencies, and was able in March to 
discard crutches and go on two sticks. 

Julian’s pleasure at receiving the Republican 
nomination for Congress in April, 1860, was quite 
outweighed by the gloom occasioned by Mrs. 
Julian’s marked decline, and the summer and au¬ 
tumn were chiefly devoted to her. Among the 
first to congratulate him on his nomination were 
old Free Soil friends of the Thirty-first Congress, 
the following being one of many communications 
received at this time: 

“Columbus, April 9, 1860. 

Dear Julian: 

I congratulate you with all my heart, and your 
district as warmly, on your nomination. Your 
election is a fixed fact. So our principles prevail. 
You know that in my eagerness to have you recog¬ 
nized as your abilities demand I have been 
anxious that you should comply a little more than 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


203 


you have done—not by yielding in principle—but 
by supporting those opposed to the anti-slavery 
party, though not so decided against slavery as 
yourself. But it seems you have judged most 
wisely. 

Let me hear from you. 

Cordially and faithfully, 

S. P. Chase”. 13 

Two letters relative to the nomination of Lin¬ 
coln by the Chicago convention possess more than 
a passing interest to the student of history. It 
will be remembered that Giddings, a delegate to 
the convention but not a member of the Resolu¬ 
tions committee, had moved to amend the plat¬ 
form submitted by inserting that portion of the 
Philadelphia platform of 1856 reaffirming the 
“self-evident truths” of the Declaration of Inde¬ 
pendence. This was voted down, but later, 
through the efforts of George William Curtis, was 
carried, and the incident was described as one of 
the most thrilling of the entire convention. 

“Centerville, Ind., May 21, 1860. 
“Hon. J. R. Giddings— 

“Dear Sir: 

I was much gratified to find you acting the part 
you did at Chicago. The conservatives evidently 
meant to cheat us. I wish you could find time to 
give me a line or two relative to a few points. 
One is, how it happened that Chase made so poor 
a show. Another, why the Chase men, and you 


13. Julian Letters. 


204 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


I suppose among them, opposed Seward. I was 
for Chase, but Seward was my next choice, though 
I was not enthused by reason of his cold speech 
in the Senate. I have however become excited over 
the matter since hearing of the general combina¬ 
tion to crush him, especially on the part of the 
Doughface Republicans of this state and Penn¬ 
sylvania. 

“I will be greatly obliged for reliable informa¬ 
tion on another point: Did Lane of this State 
threaten to decline the race for Governor and give 
up the contest if Seward should be nominated? 
The anti-slavery men here want to know how 
this is, for though they will cordially support 
Lincoln, and have perhaps as much faith in him 
as in Seward, they will not relish the idea of 
supporting a candidate for Governor who only 
labors for the spoils. Please let me hear from you 
in reply and oblige 

Very truly your friend.” 

George W. Julian. 

P. S. I was overwhelmingly nominated on the 
first Monday in April and shall be elected if I 
live. Mrs. Julian is in declining health and has 
been ever since you were here. Accept our kind 

regards. 14 

To this Mr. Giddings replied as follows: 

Jefferson, Ohio, May 25, 1860 

“My dear Julian: 

I reached home from the convention yesterday, 



14. Ibid. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


205 


and found yours of the 21st. I was glad to hear 
from you, but greatly pained to learn of Mrs. 
Julian’s ill health. I trust she may soon be 
restored. 

“The great mass of the convention was right, 
but a few wire-workers, Doughface tricksters, 
managed to get the committee arranged so as to 
leave out the inalienable rights of man. I moved 
to insert it. Cartter, [of Ohio] who led the 
Doughfaces, replied that it was in the platform, 
and under that impression they voted down my 
proposition. I took my hat and left the conven¬ 
tion. Mr. Curtis of New York moved to insert 
it in another place and it was almost unanimously 
adopted, 15 and Cartter’s course was regarded with 
disgust by most of the members. 

“The reason that Chase was so soon dropped 
was that his leading friends, appointed at his re¬ 
quest, wanted to substitute Wade for him, and 
gave out notice, as soon as they reached Chicago, 
that we were only to give Chase a complimentary 
vote and then go for Wade. I endeavored to have 
Chase’s friends withdraw his name altogether, 
before going into the first ballot. Had I been in 
his place, I would not have had my name trifled 
with in that manner. 

“Strong objections were urged against Seward. 
His friends disgusted members by their constant 

15. Mr. Curtis afterwards said that when he saw Giddings depart¬ 
ing from the hall it seemed to him that “the original impulse of the 
party was leaving the convention in his person.” Julian, Life of Gil¬ 
dings, p. 373. 


206 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

assertions that they had the money to secure his 
election, that they could buy up the doubtful 
States, etc., etc. I do not believe that Seward 
himself consented to this or knew that his friends 
were placing him in this light. Greeley made a 
poor display of himself. He was on the committee 
on platform, and exerted his utmost power, I am 
told, to keep out the assertion of man’s inalien¬ 
able rights; called it a stump speech, etc., etc., 
and when he saw that Bates could do nothing he 
became rabid against Seward. 

“As to Lincoln, I would trust him on the sub- 
ject of slavery as soon as I would Chase or 
Seward. I have been well acquainted with him 
and I think I understand his whole character. I 
know him to be honest and faithful. 

“Lane was at my room. Spoke freely. Said 
it would be difficult and he feared impossible to 
carry your State for Seward, but would insure 
it for Lincoln. Indeed, Lincoln was selected on 
account of his location, not because of objection 
to Seward or Chase, but because being a western 
man, located in Illinois, he was supposed able to 
carry that State and Indiana and was acceptable 
to Pennsylvania. 

“It is also true that some of the Doughfaces 
seemed to think him more popular because his 
anti-slavery sentiments had been less prominent. 
I was rejoiced to hear of your nomination, and 
would advise you to go right into the work. As- 
sume the whole movement to be anti-slavery, and 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


207 


on that account call on men to support it, and if any 
man fails, after election hold him up as an apos¬ 
tate from the faith. 

Remember me very kindly to Mrs. Julian, and 
believe me 

Faithfully, 

J. R. Giddings.” 16 

Although Julian had hoped for the nomination 
of Chase or Seward at Chicago, he at once set 
about addressing ratification meetings, speaking 
at points near home whenever Mrs. Julian’s con¬ 
dition permitted. 

In his grief following the death of his wife, 
which occurred a few days after the November 
election, he turned to spiritualism, studying the 
subject with the same thoroughness that he would 
bestow upon a scientific proposition. “I am in¬ 
vestigating it with all my might,” he wrote in 
February, 1861. 17 He wanted to believe in it and 
to have actual manifestation of its truth, as Gid¬ 
dings and others assured him would be the case; 
but his very eagerness prevented that “calm” 
which they predicated as a necessary condition 
precedent. The fact that Mrs. Julian herself had 
become interested in this philosophy during the 
last months of her life and had assured him that 
she would make herself known to him if possible, 
doubtless led him to pursue the subject longer 
than would otherwise have been the case; but 


16. Julian Letters. 

17. Julian’s Journal. 


208 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


although he had some remarkable experiences, 
which he could not explain, he was not converted 
to this comforting belief. 

His practical mind seemed instinctively to turn 
away from the “twilights of thought” to the clear 
sunshine of reason and in regard to the various 
so-called demonstrations of spiritual mediums he 
used to quote Emerson’s words: “Shun them as 
you would the secrets of the undertaker and the 
butcher. . . . The whole world is an omen 

and a sign. Why look so wistfully in a corner?” 
Letters of condolence poured in upon him, among 
the most prized being those from Giddings, Chase, 
Durkee, Preston King, and other old Free Soil 
friends between whom and himself there was that 
sympathetic understanding that comes from fight¬ 
ing shoulder to shoulder in a worthy cause. But 
in spite of an abiding faith in personal immortal¬ 
ity which steadily strengthened with the years, 
death meant the severing of the sweetest ties of 
life here, and was therefore a dispensation the 
bitterness of which time only could soften or 
assuage. 18 

18. Chase’s letter is given because of its political bearing: 

“Columbus, Ohio, Dec. 15, 1860. 

My dear friend: 

My heart sympathizes with you profoundly in your great bereave¬ 
ment. I do not wonder that the world looks dark. I know the trial. 
But the sources of consolation are not unknown to you, and Faith will 
lead you to them. May God bless you! 

I do not think that Mr. Lincoln will disappoint the true Repub¬ 
licans who voted for him. He may not be so radical as some would 
wish, but he is, I am confident, perfectly sincere and will never sur¬ 
render our principles or seek to abase our standard or countenance any 


209 


■ 

l 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


attempt to make our party other than what the nature of things and 
the need of the time require it to be, a truly Republican party out of 
which a genuine democracy will in good time arise. 

I have no aspirations of a personal character. If I had I would 
confide them to you readily and with a full confidence in your dispo¬ 
sition to serve me as far as you honorably could. Many, as you doubt¬ 
less see, desire that I should take a place in the Cabinet. My wishes 
do not point that way, nor have I much reason to think that Mr. 
Lincoln will offer me such a position. If the offer be made, it will be 
considered with every wish to do what is really best for Mr. Lincoln 
and our cause, and my decision will be formed, I hope, as much at least 
by what may seem to be duty as by inclination. 

Yours cordially, 

S. P. Chase.” 


14 


24142 


CHAPTER IX 


Visits Lincoln — Letter From Chase — Office 
Seekers—Inauguration of Lincoln—Thirty - 
Seventh Congress — Julian's Radical¬ 
ism — Fremont's Proclamation Au¬ 
gust 30, 1861—Committee on 
Conduct of the War — 

Speeches—Letter from 
Lydia Maria Child 

In order to form a personal acquaintance with 
the President-elect who was soon to enter upon 
a task more difficult than had fallen to the lot of 
any Executive since the formation of the govern¬ 
ment, and also for the purpose of protesting 
against the appointments of Simon Cameron of 
Pennsylvania and Caleb B. Smith of Indiana to 
Cabinet positions, Julian visited Springfield, Ill., 
early in January, 1861. The fact that Lincoln 
was a southerner by birth and had voted for 
Taylor and Scott in those two critical elections 
when the foundations of anti-slavery revolt were 
being laid, coupled with the further fact that his 
nomination had been secured by one of those po¬ 
litical bargains in which the ablest men are often 
sacrificed on the plea of availability, prejudiced 
him against the giant whose real greatness the 
future was to develop and reveal. Lincoln's 
“plain western manners and old-fashioned ap- 


(210) 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


211 


pearance” at once appealed to Julian, however, 
and he also notes in his Journal “a care-worn sad 
expression about his face which awakens sym¬ 
pathy.” 1 

His mission was not successful as far as it 
related to Smith and Cameron. Lincoln declared 
that he could not disregard the pledges made by 
his friends previous to his nomination at Chicago. 
The brief tenure however, by both these men of 
the places to which they were appointed was grat¬ 
ifying to Julian, who found no occasion for revis¬ 
ing his opinion as to the fitness of their selection. 
Smith he knew as an old Whig who had opposed 
Free Soil principles in those early days when the 
struggle to secure for them a foothold in Indiana 
was desperate, and Cameron was distasteful from 
the fact that his name had already come to stand 
for political crookedness and trickery, as well as 
because he belonged to the conciliatory and tem¬ 
porizing wing of the Republican party. Cameron 
was backed by Seward and Thurlow Weed, who 
strongly opposed the appointment of Chase to 
a cabinet position, and in view of the imbroglio 
incident thereto the following letter is of interest: 

“Columbus, January 16, ’61. 

Dear Julian: 

“Mr. Lincoln is worthy of the high esteem you 
express for him. If he only possesses himself 
of full information and then acts not on the 

1. Julian's Journal, January 16, 1861 ; also Political Recollections, 
pp. 182-183. 


212 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

views of others but in conformity with the dic¬ 
tates of his own sound judgment, all will, by God’s 
blessing, be well. I concur with you as to the 
inexpediency of the selection of the gentleman you 
name 2 for a seat in the Cabinet, and have taken 
the liberty of so advising Mr. Lincoln. 

“As to myself, all personal considerations and 
some important public considerations are against 
my taking the Treasury Department. The sub¬ 
ject was canvassed between myself and Mr. 
Lincoln. If he concurs with me in thinking it 
best that I remain in the Senate, he will not 
tender me the post; if he concludes otherwise and 
signifies by a tender that he thinks I ought to 
take it (which I hope will not be the case) I shall 
consider the offer with an anxious wish to do 
whatever may be best for the general interest. 

“The future seems quite gloomy to me. I see 
no practical adjustment offered. I see not indeed 
how one can be offered with a hope of doing good 
until after the inauguration. Then I think we 
Republicans who are thought too earnest (to use 
the soft word) for good policy might be able to 
demonstrate that earnestness and good policy are 
nearer allied than some people imagine. 

“What do you think of Seward’s speech?—It 
is not so wrong as I feared—it is not so good as 
I hoped. 3 

Your friend, S. P. Chase.” 4 

2. Whether Cameron or Smith does not appear. 

o. Delivered in the U.S. Senate, Jan. 12, 1861. Congressional 
Globe, 36th Cong. 2nd Sess. pp. 341-44. 

4. Julian Letters . 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


213 


Late in February, Julian went to Washington 
in order to witness the inaugural ceremonies, 
another and compelling motive being his desire 
to escape from the throngs of office seekers who 
besieged him during the first two months of the 
New Year. By railroad, in carriages, and on 
horse they came, from all parts of the district 
and beyond. His account of this experience con¬ 
stitutes an interesting commentary on the Spoils 
System and a telling plea in behalf of Civil Serv¬ 
ice Reform, the initial steps in the accomplish¬ 
ment of which may well have been hastened by 
the sickening experiences of this first Republican 
regime. So engrossing were the demands of the 
would-be office holders that attention to profes¬ 
sional or private matters was out of the question; 
nor was the situation improved by going to Wash¬ 
ington, for there huge bundles of communications 
from anxious patriots awaited his arrival, while 
hungry aspirants met him at every turn, asking 
for letters of recommendation, introduction, and 
so forth. To a man of Julian’s temperament and 
ideals it was cause both for dismay and humilia¬ 
tion that at a period when the gravest questions 
were before the people, and when the whole coun¬ 
try was shadowed with anxiety as to the future, 
his time and that of so many others should be 
consumed in wrangling over postmasterships, 
mail agencies, and similar comparatively unim¬ 
portant matters. He was however, quite indis¬ 
posed to permit men whom he regarded as mere 
political schemers, afraid to avow the full Repub- 


214 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

lican creed, and who had moreover done their 
best to compass his defeat in the late election, 
to dictate in such matters, and it is needless to 
say that he threw himself into these struggles 
with his habitual earnestness and vim. Those 
who sought his aid at this time were by no means 
all from Indiana. Many were from remote sec¬ 
tions of the country, among them a number of 
old Free Soilers whose letters remain to testify 
to the widespread demand for office under the 
new administration. Artemus Ward’s (Charles 
Farrar Brown) account of a call he made on 
Lincoln soon after the election, in which he en¬ 
countered swarms of office seekers filling the 
house, door yard, woodshed and barn, even sliding 
down the chimneys and crawling between Lin¬ 
coln’s legs, throws strong light on the situation, 
and is evidently freer from exaggeration than 
might be supposed. 

Julian found the national capital little changed 
during the ten years since he had seen it. But 
this only emphasized anew his own altered life, 
the one mitigation to his loneliness being the re¬ 
union with, old Free Soil friends. Although in 
some repects the political atmosphere had im¬ 
proved, it was still “a city of Secessionists”, and 
none knew precisely what the immediate future 
held in store. Seven states had withdrawn from 
the Union, Jefferson Davis had been elected Pres¬ 
ident of the “Confederate States of America”, and 
although Abraham Lincoln was peacefully in- 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


215 


augurated it was clearly seen that civil war was 
inevitable. In view of this situation, it seemed to 
many that no adequate measures were being taken 
to protect the Capitol or to prepare for the 
struggle. The Bull Run disaster, which only “a 
lucky accident” prevented Julian from witnessing 
along with other members of Congress, appeared 
to him “the natural fruit of the soil in which it 
grew”, and although he voted for the Confisca¬ 
tion Act of August 6, 1861, as he did for all party 
measures throughout the war, he regarded it as 
by no means sufficiently sweeping. He considered 
it too much “like an enactment intended to noti¬ 
fy the rebels that we are slightly inclined to take 
our own part, but very anxious to do so in such 
manner as shall occasion them the least possible 
inconvenience.” 5 

The blood of fighting French and German an¬ 
cestors, mingling with Scotch Convenanter and 
anti-slavery Quaker strains, was not calculated 
to produce a milk-and-water precipitate, and this 
must always be borne in mind in considering 
Julian's course. He did not hastily form conclu¬ 
sions, but once he had taken a stand on a question 
involving fundamental principles, he was ready 
to meet “a world in arms”, and could be satisfied 
with no half-way measures. Carl Schurz says 
in his Reminiscences that when some one asked 
Senator Sumner if he had ever looked at the other 
side of the slavery question, he answered, “There 


5. Julian’s Journal, Sept. 5, 1861. 


216 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


is no other side”, and Schurz avers that Sumner 
was not merely unwilling to envisage the alter¬ 
native, but incapable of doing so. “The peremp¬ 
toriness of his convictions was so strong that it 
was difficult for him to understand how anyone 
could seriously consider The other side’ without 
being led astray by some moral obliquity”. 6 
Julian’s temperament was much the same, and 
perhaps this may help to make clear his uncom¬ 
promising attitude on more than one occasion and 
his impatience with those whose conclusions did 
not coincide with his own. Since human slavery 
was an unmixed evil, it must be opposed at every 
step within constitutional limits; this he had 
always contended. He had seen northern men 
cower and give way for years before threats of 
dissolving the Union. Within the past few 
months he had witnessed various abject offers of 
compromise on the part of the north, the most 
shocking being the proposition, acquiesced in by 
President Lincoln so to amend the Federal Con¬ 
stitution as to perpetuate slavery in the southern 
states; and he had seen all these overtures stub¬ 
bornly rejected. By the action of the south, the 
two great forces, so long glowering at one another, 
were now in mortal combat, and it was his firm 
conviction that as slavery was the real bone of 
contention the true policy of the administration 
was to say so, and thus enlist a tremendous moral 
sentiment in defense of the Union. 


/ > 


6. Schurz’ Reminiscences, Vol. II, p. 312. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


217 


Julian knew all the arguments on the other 
side:—fear of the border slave states, divisions 
among loyal men, military unpreparedness, and 
so forth. But as he was by nature a radical, so 
he was also a born democrat. He felt sure that 
the people of the loyal states were far in advance 
of the politicians, and that upon their apprehen¬ 
sion of the issues involved depended the success 
of the Union cause. Accordingly, on the adjourn¬ 
ment of the special session he hastened home and 
at once entered upon a speaking tour of his dis¬ 
trict, partly for the purpose of raising recruits 
for sundry regiments organizing at Richmond, 
and partly to assist in bringing up public senti¬ 
ment to its true level in regard to the issues 
involved in the war. He well knew that in the 
campaign in which he now engaged he was with¬ 
out the sympathy of those members of his party 
less deeply indoctrinated with anti-slavery prin¬ 
ciples, that the machine as usual was against him, 
and that plans were already being laid for his 
retirement at the end of his present term. “Po¬ 
litical life is uncertain at best”, he wrote at this 
time, “and I have no desire to continue in office 
by keeping mum on vital issues.” 7 

Fremont’s proclamation of August 30, 1861, 
confiscating the property and declaring free the 
slaves of “all persons in the State of Missouri who 
shall take up arms against the United States, or 
shall be directly proven to have taken an active 


7. Julian’s Journal, Sept. 5, 1861. 


218 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

part with their enemies in the field” was warmly 
applauded by Julian, as it was by Sumner and 
other radical Republicans. They saw in it a direct 
blow at slavery and were accordingly disappointed 
by the President’s modification of the order. 
Great excitement prevailed throughout the North¬ 
west over this affair, public sentiment being 
strongly with Fremont, and Lincoln’s reasons,— 
that Fremont’s order did not conform to the Con¬ 
fiscation Act of August 6th and w T as displeasing 
to the border States, were by no means satisfac¬ 
tory to men of this view. “It is known that 
General Fremont’s proclamation was modified to 
accommodate the loyal slaveholders of Kentucky; 
but what right, I ask, had the loyal men of that 
state to complain if the disloyal men of Missouri 
forfeited their slaves by treason? If pretended 
loyal men in Kentucky or elsewhere value slav¬ 
ery above the Union, then they are not loyal, and 
the attempt to make them so by concessions will 
be vain. A conditional Union man is no Union 
man at all. Loyality must be absolute. Tf the 
Lord be God, serve Him; but if Baal, serve him’. 
There can be no middle ground.” 8 

In the Thirty-seventh Congress, which dealt 
with some of the most momentous and perplex¬ 
ing questions that had presented themselves since 
the formation of the government, and the pro¬ 
ceedings of which occupy seven large volumes of 
the Congressional Globe, Julian was a member of 


8. Julian’s Speeches, p. 173. Globe, 37th Cong., 2nd Sess., p. 331. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


219 


the Committee on Public Lands, of the Commit¬ 
tee on Public Expenditures, and also of an impor¬ 
tant new committee, a Joint Committee of both 
Houses on the Conduct of the War. The crea¬ 
tion of this committee grew out of a widespread 
feeling of doubt and uncertainty following the 
battle of Bull Run and the affair of Ball’s Bluff 
in which Colonel Edward D. Baker, recently a 
Senator from Oregon who had resigned his seat 
in order to enter the service and who was a close 
friend of President Lincoln, lost his life. Other 
military blunders aggravated this feeling, which 
was also increased by the prolonged delay of Gen¬ 
eral McClellan in taking the offensive. 

When McClellan was appointed by the Presi¬ 
dent to succeed General McDowell in command 
of the Army of the Potomac soon after the Battle 
of Bull Run, all the resources of the government 
were freely and eagerly placed at the young gen¬ 
eral’s disposal. Other commanders were deprived 
of men in order to swell that great mass of fight¬ 
ing material, McClellan’s extravagant demands 
being complied with to the limit of the govern¬ 
ment’s capacity. But when month after month 
passed, characterized by glorious weather, with 
nothing to show except the blockade of the Poto¬ 
mac by the Confederate forces and the sacrifice 
at Ball’s Bluff, although the army of the Potomac 
aggregated at least 170,000 men in fighting trim 
while General Johnston’s effective force was 


220 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


known to be less than 50,000, confidence gave way 
to chagrin and impatience. 

The Joint Resolution providing for the Commit¬ 
tee on the Conduct of the War did not specifical¬ 
ly define the scope of its activities, but its mem¬ 
bers interpreted their chief function to be “to 
obtain such information as the many laborious 
duties of the President and his Cabinet prevented 
them from acquiring, and to lay it before them 
with such recommendations and suggestions as 
seemed to be most imperatively demanded.” 9 
Particular instructions came to the committee 
from time to time from both Houses of Congress, 
and the President and Secretary of War like¬ 
wise laid various matters before it for investiga¬ 
tion and report. 

The Senate members of the Committee on the 
Conduct of the War were Benjamin F. Wade of 
Ohio, chairman; Zachariah Chandler of Michigan, 
and Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, while the 
House members consisted of Daniel W. Gooch of 
Massachusetts, John Covode of Pennsylvania, 
George W. Julian of Indiana, and Moses F. Odell 
of New York. Senator Wade, the Chairman, was 
the oldest member, having been born in Massa¬ 
chusetts in 1800. Removing to Ohio at an early 
age, he became a lawyer and had now been in the 
Senate for ten years. One of the most outspoken 
among the so-called radicals, he had joined with 
Senators Trumbull and Chandler in October pre- 

9. Report of Committee on Conduct of the War, 37th Cong. 3rd 
Sess. Part 1, p. 4. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


221 


vious in urging- upon President Lincoln the im¬ 
portance of directing General McClellan to make 
a move on the enemy without further delay, only 
to be told by Lincoln that McClellan himself was 
the best judge as to this. The latter’s elevation 
to the command of all the armies of the United 
States in place of General Winfield Scott resigned, 
followed almost immediately. 

Zachariah Chandler, born in New Hampshire 
in 1813, was a merchant by profession, and had 
succeeded Lewis Cass as Senator from Michigan 
in 1857. A man of unquestioned integrity and 
ability, he too ranked among radicals during that 
troubled period. Andrew Johnson, then fifty- 
three years of age, had already had an eventful 
career, having risen from tailor to the Governor¬ 
ship of Tennessee, where he had served two terms, 
before entering the United States Senate in 1857. 
His appointment by President Lincoln as Military 
Governor of Tennessee in March, 1862, cut short 
his work with the Committee on the Conduct of 
the War, and he was succeeded by Joseph A. 
Wright of Indiana, who had just entered the 
Senate after serving his State as Governor for 
two terms and filling the post of Minister to Prus¬ 
sia for several years. Daniel W. Gooch, a grad¬ 
uate of Dartmouth College and a lawyer, was the 
youngest member of the committee, being less 
than forty-two. He had served in the Thirty-fifth 
and Thirty-sixth Congresses, and was one of 
the most active members of the committee. John 
Covode, a Pennsylvania farmer and manufac- 


222 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

turer, born in 1808, had represented his state in 
Congress since 1855. Moses F. Odell had been 
active in New York politics from an early age, 
having held office under both Presidents Polk and 
Buchanan before entering the present Congress. 

This was the personnel of the Committee on 
the Conduct of the War during the Thirty-seventh 
Congress. Two years later, Benjamin F. Hard¬ 
ing, a new senator from Oregon, succeeded Joseph 
A. Wright, but resigned within a month and was 
replaced by Charles R. Buckalew, recently ap¬ 
pointed to the Senate from Pennsylvania. Co- 
vode’s place was taken by Benjamin F. Loan, a 
newly elected Representative from Missouri. 
The arduous and useful labors of this committee 
have not yet been recognized in proportion to 
their real value. Meetings were held in the room 
of the Senate Committee on Territories, in the 
basement of the Capitol, a dingy and quite inad¬ 
equate apartment where appeared from time to 
time all the great Union commanders. One can 
see in imagination the long line of blue-coated 
officers, McDowell, Burnside, Halleck, Hooker, 
McClellan, Sherman, Grant, Meade, Sheridan, 
Fremont, Pope, Rosecrans and the rest, worn and 
worried, pausing in the midst of the greatest 
undertaking of their generation, to tell what they 
knew and sometimes what they surmised. There 
too came in answer to summons government offi¬ 
cials, special agents, civilians,—all who might 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


223 


shed any light on the vexatious and frequently 
baffling situations that presented themselves. 10 

The members of this War Committee, meeting 
usually every day or every other day, came to 
know one another very well, and their service 
presented a unique opportunity to acquaint them¬ 
selves with that which went on behind the scenes 
and with the men who were primarily responsible 
for the preservation of the nation’s life. Sub¬ 
committees were designated to visit battlefields 
and to interview witnesses immediately following 
important engagements, as in the case of the 
Battle of Fredericksburg. Full reports were 
made to the entire committee, whose proceedings, 
including the Journal and testimony, comprise 
eight large volumes. Here one gets first hand 
details as to military matters great and small. 
Lincoln’s too great patience with McClellan, his 
kind yet firm manner of reproving the latter, his 
slyly humorous thrusts, the persistent and finally 
successful efforts of the Committee on the Con¬ 
duct of the War to induce Lincoln to force McClel¬ 
lan into action and to divide his immense army 
into army corps,—all this and much more is clear¬ 
ly set forth and forms one of the most important 
chapters of the history of the Civil War. 

The account of General Fremont, Colonel Blair 
and the army contracts commands close attention, 

10. For a discussion of the activities of the Committee on Conduct 
of the War, see William Whatley Pierson, Jr., American Historical Re¬ 
view, Apr., 1918, Vol. 23, No. 3, p. 550-576. 


224 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

showing Fremont in anything but a favorable 
light. This must have been especially painful to 
Julian, for between the two families had sprung 
up a pleasant intimacy and many letters from 
Jessie Benton Fremont on the subject of her hus¬ 
band’s “persecutions” remain to testify alike to 
her unremitting efforts to vindicate him and to 
the Pathfinder’s easy-going ways and colossal 
ambition. 11 Quite as absorbing are the narra¬ 
tives of General Grant’s operations, of the Sher¬ 
man-Johnston affair, rebel atrocities, and kindred 
matters. One seems to come very close to both 
witnesses and members of the committee and to 
breathe the tense and troubled atmosphere of that 
crucial period. Senator Wade, as Chairman, nat¬ 
urally took the lead in interrogatories, although 
every member was at liberty to break in at any 
point with such questions as might suggest them¬ 
selves. One notes that Julian rarely failed to take 
up the examination when the subject of slavery 
was touched upon, or of contrabands, or the reli¬ 
ability of information gained through negroes by 
our troops, or their efficiency as soldiers. 

In addition to the absorbing duties of these com¬ 
mittees, into the deliberations of all of which he 
threw himself with characteristic energy, Julian 
kept abreast of whatever other business came 
before the House. It was evidently not then cus¬ 
tomary for members to absent themselves day 
after day from their posts of duty, and this 
Hoosier Congressman chides himself in the pages 


11. Julian Letters. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


225 


of his Journal when he misses a vote, even though 
it could not have altered the result. On December 
20th, he offered a resolution instructing the Judi¬ 
ciary Committee to report a bill so amending the 
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 as to forbid the re¬ 
capture and return of fugitives from labor with¬ 
out proof first made by claimant of loyality to 
the government. William S. Holman, a Demo¬ 
cratic colleague from Indiana, promptly moved to 
table this resolution, but his motion failed and 
the resolution carried by a vote of 78 to 89. 12 
When in the following June, however, Julian pro¬ 
posed that the Judiciary Committee be instructed 
to report a bill repealing the Fugitive Slave Act, 
Holman’s motion to table carried by a vote of 
66 to 51, Albert G. Porter of Indiana being one 
of sixteen Republicans who voted in the affirma¬ 
tive. 13 As an illustration of the caution and con¬ 
servatism of Republican tactics it is noteworthy 
that wheii in the succeeding Congress, Julian re¬ 
newed his effort at repeal of this very obnoxious 
measure, the vote to table, again on Holman’s 
motion stood 82 to 73. 14 

Twice during this session Julian addressed the 
House. His speech of January 14, 1862, on “The 
Cause and Cure of our National Troubles” called 
forth more favorable comment perhaps than any 
he ever delivered. 15 Declining to accept the pop- 

12. Globe, 37th Cong. 2nd Sess. p. 158. 

13. Ibid. p. 2623. 

14. Globe, 38th Cong. 1st Sess. p. 22. 

15. Julian’s Speeches, p. 154. Globe, 37th Cong. 2nd Sess. p. 327. 


15—24142 


226 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

ular fallacy which charged secession to the dem¬ 
ocratic theory of state rights, he insisted that 
there were such things as state rights, notwith¬ 
standing the efforts of rebels to make them a 
cloak for treason. However, “It was not jealousy 
of the Federal power”, said he, “that prompted 
the rebel States to secede, but their inability 
longer to rule the national government in the 
interest of slavery. It was not jealousy of the 
aggressions of the state governments that gave 
birth to the Dred Scott decision, but the influence 
of that same slave power sitting like a throned 
monarch on the Supreme Bench in perverting the 
powers of the government. Whether the Consti¬ 
tution has been made to dip towards centraliza¬ 
tion or state rights, the disturbing element has 
uniformly been slavery. This is the unclean 
spirit that from the beginning has needed exor¬ 
cism. Without it there were not defects enough 
in the system of government which our fathers 
left us to endanger its success or seriously to 
disturb its equilibrium. . . . 

“Sir, this rebellion is a bloody and frightful 
demonstration of the fact that slavery and free¬ 
dom cannot dwell together in peace. The exper¬ 
iment has been tried thoroughly, perseveringly, 
with a patience which defied despair, and has 
culminated in Civil War. We have pursued the 
spirit of conciliation to the very gates of death, 
and yet the ‘irrepressible conflict’ is upon us and 
must work out its needed lesson. I do not refer 
to our uniform forbearance towards slavery as 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


227 


a virtue. On the contrary this has only maddened 
and emboldened its spirit, and hastened an event 
which was simply a question of time. We in the 
free states are not wholly guiltless, but I charge 
to the account of slavery that very timidity and 
lack of manhood in the north through which it 
has managed to rule the nation. It has prepared 
itself for its work of treason by feeding upon the 
virtue of our public men and demoralizing the 
spirit of our people. As an argument against 
slavery this rebellion is absolutely overwhelming. 
Other arguments, however convincing to men of 
reflection, have not thus far been able to rouse 
the mass of our people to any very earnest opposi¬ 
tion to slavery upon principle; but this argument 
must prevail with every man who is not a rebel 
at heart. This black conspiracy against the life 
of the Republic, which has armed half a million 
men in its work of treason, piracy and 
murder, ... is the crowning flower and 
fruit of our partnership with The sum of all 
villainies.’ ” 18 

While waiving none of the humanitarian 
grounds on which he opposed slavery, he emphat¬ 
ically urged emancipation as a war measure: 

“Sir, in such a contest we can spare no possible 
advantage. We want no ‘war conducted on peace 
principles’. t Every weapon within our reach 
must be grasped. Every arrow in our quiver 
must be sped towards the heart of a rebel. Every 
obstacle in the path of our conquering hosts must 

16. Globe, 37th Cong. 2nd Sess. p. 328. 


228 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

be trampled down. ... I know it was not 
the purpose at first of this Administration to 
abolish slavery, but only to save the Union and 
maintain the old order of things. Neither was 
it the purpose of our fathers, in the beginning of 
the Revolution, to insist on independence. Before 
the first battles were fought a reconciliation 
could have been secured simply by removing the 
grievance which led to arms. But events soon 
prepared the people to demand absolute separa¬ 
tion. Similar facts may tell the story of the pres¬ 
ent struggle. In its beginning neither the Admin¬ 
istration nor the people foresaw its magnitude 
nor the extraordinary means it would employ in 
prosecuting its designs. The crisis has assumed 
new features as the war has progressed. The 
policy of emancipation has been born of the cir¬ 
cumstances of the rebellion, which every hour 
more and more plead for it. ‘Time makes more 
converts than reason’. I believe the popular 
demand now is, or soon will be, the total extirpa¬ 
tion of slavery as the righteous purpose of the 
war and the only means of a lasting peace. We 
should not now agree, if it were proposed, to re¬ 
store slavery to its ancient rights under the Con¬ 
stitution and allow it a new cycle of rebellion 
and crime.” 17 

Quoting John Quincy Adams as to the war 
power of Congress, of the President, or of the 
Commander of the Army to order universal eman¬ 
cipation he continued: 


17. Ibid. p. 331. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


229 


“This, Sir, is the grand weapon which the 
rebels have placed in our hands, and we should 
use it as a matter of unhesitating duty. Not 
that the Constitution is so absolutely perfect or 
so entirely sacred that we can in no event dis¬ 
regard it. The nation is greater than the Con¬ 
stitution because it made the Constitution. We 
had a country before we had a Constitution, and 
at all hazards we must save it. The Constitution 
was made for the people, not the people for the 
Constitution. Cases may arise in which patriot¬ 
ism itself may demand that we trample under our 
feet some of the most vital principles of the Con¬ 
stitution under the exigencies of war. But so 
far as emancipation is concerned . . . the 

Constitution itself recognizes the war power of 
the government, which the rebels have compelled 
us to employ against them. . . . Never per¬ 

haps in the history of any nation has so grand 
an opportunity presented itself for serving the 
interests of humanity and freedom. And our re¬ 
sponsibility, commensurate with our power, can 
not be evaded. As we are freed from all ante¬ 
cedent obligations, we should deal with this re¬ 
morseless oligarchy as if we were at the begin¬ 
ning of the nation’s life, and about to lay the 
foundations of empire in these States for ages 
to come. Our failure to give freedom to four 
millions of slaves would be a crime only to be 
measured by that of putting them in chains if 
they were free. If we could fully grasp this idea 


280 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


our duty would become at once plain and impera¬ 
tive.” 

In answer to possible objections on the ground 
of injustice to the loyal slaveholders of the south 
he said: 

“In the first place, I would pay to every loyal 
slave claimant, on due proof of loyalty, the fairly 
assessed value of his slaves. I would not do this 
as compensation, for no man should receive pay 
for robbing another of his earnings and plunder¬ 
ing him of his humanity; but as a means of facil¬ 
itating the settlement of our troubles and securing 
a lasting peace I would tax the treasury to this 
extent. From the beginning, slavery has been 
an immense pecuniary burden, and we can well 
afford to pay the amount which this policy would 
impose for the sake of getting rid of that burden 
forever.” 

Replying to a further objection to emancipa¬ 
tion, namely, its danger, he declared that no pos¬ 
sible consequences could be worse than destroy¬ 
ing the government of the United States, the hope 
of the civilized world. “Do you ask me if I would 
‘turn the slaves loose?’ I reply that this rebel¬ 
lion, threatening to desolate the land with the 
greatest assemblage of horrors ever witnessed on 
earth, is not the consequence of turning the slaves 
loose, but of holding them in chains. Do you ask 
me what I would do with these liberated millions? 
I answer by asking what they will do with us if 
we insist on keeping them in bondage?” In proof 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


231 


of his contention that emancipation would be wise, 
safe and profitable both to master and slave, he 
pointed to the case of the British West Indies, 
where nearly a million slaves, far outnumbering 
the white population, were suddenly freed by an 
act of legislation, no violence following. In the 
Island of Jamaica thirty insurrections occurred 
during the century preceding emancipation, but 
not one had taken place since; violence and crime 
on the part of the negro race are not the con¬ 
comitants of freedom, but the offspring of slav¬ 
ery. The slaves of the south when freed would 
have a vast region in which to develop and im¬ 
prove, a region where there was abundant need 
of their labor. They were not unfamiliar with 
industrial pursuits, and if compensated for their 
toil and acted upon by the renovating power of 
kindness, they would not only take care of them¬ 
selves but become a mighty element of wealth 
in the latitudes of our country peculiarly suited 
to their constitution. Their local attachments 
were strong, and but for slavery they would not 
be found either in Canada or the northern States. 
In conclusion, he planted himself on the impreg¬ 
nable ground of right, without regard to supposed 
expediency. As he rejected Atheism, so he be¬ 
lieved it safe to restore to our enslaved millions 
the title-deeds of their freedom; safe to give them 
a fair day's wages for a fair day's work; safe 
to recognize their rights of marriage and the 
sacredness of the family; safe to allow them the 


232 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


untrammeled use of their powers of mind and 
body in the pursuit of their own highest good. 18 

This speech was prepared under difficulties, at 
a time when he was working twenty hours a day 
and when the maladies that pursued him during 
the rest of his life had unmistakably fastened 
themselves upon him. Delivered in advance of 
Thaddeus Stevens’ plea for emancipation as a war 
measure, and more than eight months before 
President Lincoln’s preliminary Proclamation of 
Emancipation, it undoubtedly was of real service 
in educating public opinion and in hastening the 
adoption of a more thorough-going policy in the 
conduct of the war. It was read aloud in law offices, 
grocery stores, and wherever men congregated to 
discuss the issues of the day; it was quoted in 
pulpits on Sunday evenings, and its wide dissem¬ 
ination through pamphlets and newspapers 
familiarized people with the most advanced Re¬ 
publicanism. 19 

The Congressional speech perhaps reached the 
hey-day of its power during the Civil War, 
and was quite as much the creator as the 

18. Ibid. pp. 329-332. 

19. Julian’s Scrap-book. Rev. George B. Cheever of New York 
City, wrote on January 23, 1862: “Permit me to thank you for your 
admirable and forceful speech which I have just had the pleasure of 
perusing through the loan of our friend Mr. Goodell’s copy of the 
Globe. It strikes me as the ablest speech on this great subject delivered 
in the House. And is there not some hope that the President may yet 
be moved in the right direction before it is too late? How truly you 
say, ‘If we expect the favor of God we must lay hold of the conscience 
of our quarrel’! God bless you, my dear sir, for this effort. I shall 
take the liberty of quoting from your speech in my discourse on Sab¬ 
bath evening.” 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


233 


reflection of public opinion. The state of the 
country awakened in every member the best 
thought of which he was capable and this thought 
sometimes expressed itself in words that were 
shot and shell. They not only found a ready echo 
in the hearts of the people of the loyal States, but 
their influence was savingly felt in our armies, 
where they were plentifully scattered in pamphlet 
and newspaper editions. Many of those speeches 
are now prophecies fulfilled and are still valuable 
as instructive memorials of the great war for the 
Union and of the strongly stated grounds on 
which it was fought; and their authors may fairly 
divide the honors with our great military com¬ 
manders whose victories depended so largely upon 
the roused spirit of the people and the conscience 
of their cause. “He who moulds public senti¬ 
ment,said Lincoln, “goes deeper than he who en¬ 
acts statutes or pronounces decisions.” 

The old Abolitionists were especially gratified 
with Julian’s speech. Gerrit Smith, William 
Lloyd Garrison, Lydia Maria Child, and Oliver 
Johnson, were among the first to thank him and 
all asked for copies for distribution. Joseph 
Medill of the Chicago Tribune wrote that he was 
using liberal extracts in all editions of his paper, 
thus giving it a circulation of nearly sixty thou¬ 
sand, and added: 

“I love your way of talking,—no mincing, 
mouthing or apologizing to the oligarchy. Would 
to God all our Republicans were of your stamp. 
My heart begins to fail me that Congress will not 


234 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

strike a blow of any kind at the slaveholders.” 20 

The following characteristic letter from Gid- 
dings must have been particularly gratifying: 

“Jefferson, Ohio 
January 27, 1862 

“Dear Julian: 

I have just risen from reading your speech. I 
thank you for it. It gives me confidence and 
hope. As I retire from the stage of action I re¬ 
joice to see others who are likely to remain at 
least for some years standing up like men, speak¬ 
ing out their own thoughts honestly, plainly and 
kindly. 

It is the best I have seen of the present Con¬ 
gress. Indeed, in running it over, I discover but 
one thought in which I did not concur. That re¬ 
spects the payment of loyal masters for the loss 
of their slaves. I would make the masters pay 
the slaves whatever balance may be justly due 
them if I had the power. But I approve of each 
man’s expressing his own views. 

Remember me kindly to all lovers of freedom, 
and be assured of my high respect, 

Very faithfully, 

Joshua R. Giddings.” 21 

Once again during this session Julian addressed 
the House, on May 23, 1862. 22 The Confiscation 

20. Julian Letters. 

21. Julian Letters. Giddings had been appointed by Lincoln Con¬ 
sul General to the British North American Provinces in the spring of 
1861, and was located in Montreal, but was at home on a short visit 
at this time. 

22. Julian’s Speeches, p. 181. Globe, 37th Cong. 2nd Sess. Ap¬ 
pendix, p. 184. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


235 


Bill was under consideration, a measure that sim¬ 
ply declared free the slaves of armed rebels and 
their abettors, making proof of loyalty by the 
claimant of a fugitive necessary to his recovery. 
This bill was voted down three days later by that 
overwhelmingly Republican House, which like the 
President was still deferential towards the insti¬ 
tution of slavery; but the spirit of Julian’s speech 
was heartily responded to by his constituents as 
well as by large numbers in the free States who 
believed in a vigorous prosecution of the war and 
were tired of “the never-ending gabble about the 
sacredness of the Constitution”, much of which 
came from such specimens as Breckenridge and 
Burnett, Kentucky Congressmen who had recently 
been expelled from the United States Senate and 
House respectively and who had since joined the 
Confederacy. Julian insisted that the Constitu¬ 
tion was not a shield for the protection of rebels 
against the government, but a sword for smiting 
them to the earth and preserving the nation’s life, 
and that it gave ample and express authority for 
any and every Congressional measure consistent 
with the law of nations and the usages of war, 
confiscation being fully recognized thereunder. 

“Sir, who are these men in whose behalf the 
Constitution is so persistently invoked ? They are 
rebels who have defied its power and who by tak¬ 
ing their stand outside the Constitution have 
driven us to meet them on their own ground. By 
abdicating the Constitution and conspiring against 
the government, they have assumed the character 


236 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

of public enemies, and have thus no rights but the 
rights of war, while in dealing with them we are 
bound by no laws but the laws of war.” 

It was slavery, he held, that had given us false 
views of the Constitution as well as false ideas as 
to the character and purposes of the war. The 
people of the north quite understood that slavery 
lay at the bottom of all our troubles, and that but 
for slavery the present horrid revolt would not 
have occurred. “Sir, the people of these states 
will not only think about slavery, and talk about 
it, but they will earnestly seek to use the present 
opportunity to get rid of it forever. Nothing can 
possibly sanctify the trials and sufferings through 
which we are called to pass but the permanent 
establishment of liberty and peace. If this is not 
a war of ideas, it is not a war to be defended. 
As a mere struggle for political power between 
opposing States, or a mere question of physical 
strength and courage, it becomes impious in the 
light of its horrible baptism of fire and blood. It 
would rank with the senseless and purposeless 
wars between the despotisms of the Old World, 
bringing with it nothing of good for freedom or 
the race . . . 

“The people of the United States and the 
armies of the United States are not the unreason¬ 
ing machines of arbitrary power, but the intelli¬ 
gent champions of free institutions, voluntarily 
espousing the side of the Union upon principle. 
They know, as does the civilized world, that the 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


237 


rebels are fighting to diffuse and eternize slavery, 
and that that purpose must be met by a manly 
and conscientious resistance . . . Mr. Speak¬ 

er, I can conceive of nothing more monstrously 
absurd, or more flagrantly recreant, than the idea 
of conducting this war against a slaveholders’ 
rebellion as if slavery had no existence. The 
madness of such a policy strikes me as next to 
infinite. Here are more than a million men called 
into deadly strife by the struggle of this Black 
Power to diffuse itself over the continent and 
strike down the cause of free government every¬ 
where, deluging these otherwise happy States 
with suffering and death without parallel in the 
history of the world: and yet, so far has this 
power perverted the judgment and debauched the 
conscience of the country that we are seriously 
exhorted to make still greater sacrifices in order 
to placate its spirit.” 23 

In defending the financial management of the 
administration against the attacks of Representa¬ 
tive Daniel W. Voorhees of Indiana he declared 
that the immense burden of debt which the war 
was heaping up had been chiefly caused by the 
mistaken policy of tenderness towards the seced¬ 
ing States and immunity for their pet institution, 
a policy steadily and strenuously urged and sup¬ 
ported by Voorhees and his Democratic associ¬ 
ates. The policy of delay, which had also sought 
to spare slavery was never accepted by President 


23. Julian’s Speeches, pp. 185-186. 


238 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Lincoln of his own choice, but under the influence 
of those in and out of the army in whom he re¬ 
posed confidence. Julian was sure that Lincoln 
would soon use his military authority to free the 
slaves, instancing his language in rescinding Gen¬ 
eral Hunter’s order as foreshadowing such action 
among the thick-coming events of the future. 24 
Conservatives and cowards might recoil from it 
and seek to oppose it, but to resist it would be to 
wrestle with destiny,—quoting Carlyle’s words,— 
“It is in vain to vote a false image true. Vote 
it, and re-vote it, by overwhelming majorities, by 
jubilant unanimities, the thing is NOT SO; it is 
otherwise than so, and all Adam’s posterity, 
voting upon it till Doomsday, cannot change it”. 
He insisted that the history of reform bore un¬ 
failing witness to this truth . . . “Where 

are those Northern statesmen who betrayed 

24. General Hunter was in command of the Military Department 
of the South, and his order of May 9, 1862, declared: “Slavery and 
martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible. The per¬ 
sons in these states—Georgia, Florida and South Carolina—heretofore 
held as slaves are therefore declared forever free.” Nicolay and Hay 
in their Life of Lincoln say that Hunter “doubtless felt it a duty to 
proclaim officially what practically had come to pass.” The numbers 
of blacks within Hunter’s lines had increased during the past two 
months from 320 to more than 9,000, and as he lacked a sufficient force 
for offensive movements he decided to organize, arm and train regi¬ 
ments of colored soldiers. Because mail from the Department of the 
South could go only by sea, it was a week before President Lincoln 
knew of Hunter’s order. Lincoln’s proclamation recited that the Gov¬ 
ernment had no knowledge or part in the issuing of Hunter’s order of 
emancipation, that neither Hunter nor any other person had been au¬ 
thorized to declare free the slaves of any State, and that such orders 
were altogether void. Whether it should be competent for him (Lin¬ 
coln) as Commander in Chief to declare the slaves of any State or 
States free, he reserved to himself to decide. Nicolay and Hay, Vol. 
VI, p. 94. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


239 


liberty in 1820?—They are already forgotten or 
remembered in their dishonor. Who now believes 
that any fresh laurels were won in 1850 by the 
great men who sought to gag the people of the 
free States and to lay the slab of silence on those 
truths which today write themselves down along 
with the guilt of slavery in the flames of civil 
war? . . . Has any man in the whole history 

of American politics, however deeply rooted his 
reputation or God-like his gifts, been able to hold 
dalliance with slavery and live? I believe the 
spirit of liberty is the spirit of God, and if the 
giants of a past generation were not strong 
enough to wrestle with it can the pygmies of the 
present?” 25 

This speech sounded the key-note for his ap¬ 
proaching Congressional canvass, and the more 
radical policy finally inaugurated by the President 
and Congress made it a prophecy fulfilled. Among 
those who most warmly commended its senti¬ 
ments was Lydia Maria Child, in a long letter 
of which the opening and closing passages are 
given, the latter being of particular interest as 
emphasizing one of the dangers which presented 
itself to a careful student of public affairs at that 
time : 

“Wayland, Mass., June 16, 1862. 
Hon. Mr. Julian, 

Dear Sir: 

“I thank you from the depths of my soul for 
your speech on Confiscation and Liberation. It 

25. Globe, 37th Cong. 2nd Sess. Appendix, p. 186. 


240 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


has strengthened and cheered me more than any 
words since the war began. And I have needed 
strengthening, as you can readily imagine . . . 

“I have long thought, and though few agree 
with me I cannot banish the idea, that the rebels, 
in their last extremity of desperation will resort 
to emancipation, as the only means of securing 
the assistance of England and France. Their 
pride is so indomitable that they will do any¬ 
thing rather than submit to the United States, 
and there is no other way in which they could so 
effectually humiliate us and secure to their cause 
the sympathy of the world. John Bull and Mon¬ 
sieur Crepeau would like nothing better than to 
help in the dismemberment of these States; and 
if the South is sagacious enough to take that step 
they can do it, not only without offending the 
moral sense of their own people and of the civil¬ 
ized world, but they would be sure to receive uni¬ 
versal plaudits as missionaries of freedom, jus¬ 
tice, and humanity, while they were in fact merely 
serving the purposes of their own selfishness. I 
have never believed that M. Mercier went to 
Richmond merely to see about tobacco. Why is 
he going to France and Lord Lyons to England? 
Why is Slidell’s secretary hurrying home from 
Paris? The South has always been too cunning 
for us, and I cannot think she will lose this chance 
to make use of the advantage which we have been 
so afraid to avail ourselves of. If she does, the 
United States Government will wake up too late 
to a sense of its folly. The Border States will 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


241 


no longer place any value on the institution they 
are now so willing to sacrifice the country to sus¬ 
tain, and Sambo will be amply revenged upon us 
for rejecting the services he was so willing to 
render us in our hour of need. It is such a beau¬ 
tiful program of just retribution that it really 
seems as if Providence ought to carry it into oper¬ 
ation. But I love my country and should be 
mortified to see her in such a disgraceful position 
before the world. Yet it seems to me the chances 
are ten to one that it will be so. 

May God bless you, as my grateful heart blesses 
you. 

Yours with respect and gratitude, 

L. Maria Child.” 26 


26. Julian Letters. 


I 


16—24142 


CHAPTER X 


Politics—Second Marriage—Movement to Nomi¬ 
nate Chase—Lands of Rebels—Speech 
on Radicalism and Conservation 

In these days of stenographers, typewriters, 
telephones and other aids in the dispatch of busi¬ 
ness, the duties of a Republican member of Con¬ 
gress during the Civil War, and especially of a 
member of the popular branch, appear arduous 
indeed. Study of the grave problems growing 
out of the conflict, committee service and attend¬ 
ance at the sessions of the House formed a com¬ 
paratively small part of his labors. Work before 
the departments demanded much time and was 
often troublesome and vexatious. His large 
correspondence could not be slighted, and there 
was no secretary to lend assistance. He had to 
look after the welfare of sick and wounded sol¬ 
diers in the hospitals. The patronage of his dis¬ 
trict, civil and military, was referred to him 
under the Civil Service that then prevailed, and 
the important executive labor thus improperly 
laid upon his shoulders probably far exceeded 
that of the governor of a State in times of peace. 
This was a tremendous burden, greatly impairing 
his usefulness in the legitimate business of legis¬ 
lation, but there was no escaping it. 

The seriousness of the crisis and the sense of 
a Congressman’s responsibility laid a still further 


( 242 ) 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


243 


tax upon his nervous energy, while he was obliged 
every two years to wrestle with foes for his posi¬ 
tion, and every intervening year to reconnoitre 
the situation preliminary to the contest. It is 
easy to see that all this was no child’s play and 
that the men who had already fought the fierce 
battles of the anti-slavery conflict now stood in 
need of all their resources. Julian made a com¬ 
plete surrender of himself to the public service, 
taking no account of health, comfort, or social 
pleasures, working till a late hour at night and 
often finding himself so exhausted that rest was 
impossible. It is not strange that he lost the 
power of sleep, and that a certain sternness and 
sadness obscured the natural joy and beauty of 
life and left their indelible footprints. 

His political enemies both in the “Burnt Dis¬ 
trict” and at the State Capital lost no opportunity 
to vex and embarrass him, and he used to say that 
the opposition of the Democrats was a “gentle 
zephyr” in comparison with the warfare steadily 
waged against him by members of his own party. 
They sought to take away from him the patronage 
pertaining to his position as a Congressman by 
undermining his influence with the Administra¬ 
tion. They tried to re-introduce the old-fashioned 
nominating convention, which could be easily 
packed (as had been abundantly demonstrated), 
instead of nominating by popular vote, and they 
even attempted to form combinations with the 
Democrats for the sole purpose of compassing his 
defeat. They brought forward military candi- 


244 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


dates, hoping thus to appeal to the popular senti¬ 
ment. But he had devoted friends, many of them 
Quakers, who were constantly on the alert and 
whose zeal for his success was only matched by 
their hatred of human slavery. 1 

The fight against Julian was particularly bit¬ 
ter in 1862. The Union party movement, inspired 
by what was known as the Border State policy 
which he consistently combated, made consider¬ 
able headway at that time in some of the north¬ 
ern States. But he was one of the very few 
strongly anti-slavery Congressmen returned that 
year, and it is not necessary to state that his 
radicalism showed no weakening. In his speech 
of February 18, 1863, the last delivered by him 
in the Thirty-seventh Congress, he urged the arm¬ 
ing of the negroes as a means of giving effect to 
the President’s Proclamation of Emancipation, 
the organization of a Bureau of Emancipation to 
take charge of important interests devolving upon 
the government by reason of the extinction of 
slavery, the parcelling out of the plantations of 
rebels in small farms for the freedmen who had 
earned a right to the soil by generations of un¬ 
requited labor, and the seizure of property be¬ 
longing to traitors to be used in defraying the cost 
of the war. He expressed deep regret at the ob¬ 
ligation he felt to find fault with the Administra- 

1. Daniel Huff of Fountain City (formerly Newport) was one of 
these pillars of strength,—an early Abolitionist, active for years in 
the Underground Railroad enterprise, a man whose name stood for 
public and private virtue. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


245 




tion’s too conciliatory policy towards the South, 
avowing his respect and even affection for Lin¬ 
coln at whose hands he had received only kind¬ 
ness. “I stand ready to make any earthly 
sacrifice to sustain him in this direful conflict 
with the rebel power North and South. ‘Faith¬ 
ful are the wounds of a friend/ and it is as his 
friend, seeking to rescue the land from political 
perdition, and not as a disguised rebel seeking 
to undermine his administration that I speak.” 2 

Urging that Democratic policy should no longer 
rule in government departments, especially in 
military affairs, he said: “This is a slaveholders’ 
rebellion and therefore no man who believes in 
slavery is fit for any high command. The war 
is not a war of sections, but of ideas; and we need 
and must have military leaders who will conduct 
it in the light of this truth. To the want of such 
leaders must be attributed the delays and dis¬ 
asters of the struggle thus far. Sir, we must 
have commanders who will fight not simply as 
stipendiaries of the government, but as men 
whose whole hearts are in the work and who be¬ 
lieve religiously in the rights of man . . . 

The government which at first sought to spare 
slavery now seeks to destroy it. At last it has a 
policy, and I hold that no man ig fit to lead our 
armies or to hold any civil position who does not 
sustain that policy. Our only hope lies in a vig¬ 
orous prosecution of the war and the overthrow 

2. Julian’s Speeches, p. 205. Cong. Globe, 37th Cong., 3rd Sess. 
p. 1067. 


246 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


of Democratic rule. I care little for mere names. 
For such generals as Rosecrans, Butler, Bayard, 
Rousseau, Wallace, Dumont and Corcoran, and 
such civilians as Stanton, Bancroft, Owen and 
Dickinson, I have only words of praise. They 
are heartily for their country and as heartily de¬ 
spise the Democratic leaders who gabble about 
compromise with rebels.” 3 

En route to Centerville after the adjournment 
of Congress Julian again visited James and 
Lucretia Mott in Philadelphia, the family of Gen¬ 
eral Fremont in New York City, where he spoke 
by invitation at the great Sumter meeting on 
April 13, 1863, and Gerrit Smith’s home in Peter- 
boro. 4 This journey was soul renewing; but he 
was glad to rejoin his children and his mother 
who now presided over his household. He was 
also gratified to learn that notwithstanding his 
outspoken criticism of the government’s war pol¬ 
icy all his recommendations (about one hundred) 

3. Julian’s Speeches, p. 209. 

4. A Free Soil Representative in Congress, 1853-1855, from the 
22nd New York district. Noted Abolitionist and philanthropist. One 
of the signers of the bail bond of Jefferson Davis in 1865. On the 
occasion of the visit above referred to he gave a breakfast in Julian’s 
honor and presented him with a token of his regard in the shape of 
a card bearing the inscription : 

"To the Hon. Geo. W. Julian 
The immortal Thomas Clarkson sent locks of 
his hair to me. Attached to this paper is 
a single hair from one of these locks. 

Gerrit Smith 

Petei'boro, Apr. 15, 1863.” 

And if one’s eyes are good one discerns the fine white hair and is 
carried back in imagination to a time remote and to a pioneer of the 
anti-slavery cause in Great Britain. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


247 


as to appointments for his district under the Con¬ 
scription law had been respected by the Adminis¬ 
tration in spite of Governor Morton, Caleb B. 
Smith and others who had sought to defeat his 
wishes. 

Julian’s eight-day participation in the famous 
Morgan Raid which occurred in July of this year, 
(1863), and which constituted his only military 
service was often playfully alluded to by him and 
is described in Political Recollections. 5 He con¬ 
sidered it valuable in that it gave him a knowl¬ 
edge which he could have gained in no other way. 
The exhibitions of profanity, obscenity and moral 
recklessness amazed him, and the drunkenness of 
both officers and men made him shudder as he re¬ 
flected on the numbers who must have perished 
in the war from this cause. 

Soon after this experience he made a tour in 
Ohio with Governor Brough discussing war top¬ 
ics, and in September joined Congressman John 
A. Bingham of the same state in a canvass of 
Congressman James M. Ashley’s 6 district, under 
the supervision of the Ohio Republican State 
Committee. 

Julian’s second marriage was probably has- 

5. Pp. 232, 233. 

6. Representative from the Toledo (Ohio) district. He was a 
man of ability with a rough-and-tumble manner and addicted to mild 
profanity as instanced by this story connected with a visit of Julian’s 
to him thirty odd years later; Julian, who had suffered from insomnia 
during all the intervening years, expressed a dread of out-living his 
faculties, whereupon Ashley exclaimed, “Don’t do it, Julian, don’t do it! 
Take a powder, damn it, take a powder!” 


248 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

tened by a quite unexpected speaking- trip made 
in company with Ashley to Jefferson at this time. 
He had first met Laura, the youngest daughter of 
Giddings, at the Unitarian Church in Washington 
nearly two years before, but not until this sum¬ 
mer had the idea of a union presented itself. The 
only objection was disparity of age, he being 
twenty-two years her senior, an obstacle only 
overcome by considerable urging on his part. 
The marriage, which occurred on the last day of 
the year 1863, appealed to almost all their friends 
as extremely fitting, Charles Sumner writing to 
Giddings that it seemed to him of the happiest 
omen. Simplicity marked the wedding, owing to 
the war and especially because of the sudden 
death two months before of Julian’s second son, 
Louis Henry, a precocious nine-year-old lad of 
slender physical resources. 

Because of Giddings’ heart trouble some mem¬ 
ber of his family had for years accompanied him 
on his absences from home, and Laura had been 
his attendant both in Washington for two sea¬ 
sons prior to the war and more recently in Mon¬ 
treal. That self-forgetful devotion to her father 
which had called forth the admiration of all who 
witnessed it was now by what her husband after¬ 
wards referred to as “a sort of imputed righteous¬ 
ness”, transferred to his account, and the union 
proved to be one of rare harmony. She had at¬ 
tended Oberlin and Antioch Colleges, was thor- 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


249 


V 


oughly at home in society, and took a keen 
interest in public affairs. 7 

The movement to nominate Chase instead of 
Lincoln for the ensuing term took shape early in 
January of 1864, and had the backing of many 
prominent Republicans. The unpopularity of 
Lincoln among Congressmen at this time is indi¬ 
cated by an incident quoted in Rhodes' History 
of the United States from Arnold’s Life of Lin¬ 
coln. 8 When a Pennsylvania editor, a warm ad¬ 
mirer of the President, asked Thaddeus Stevens 
to introduce him to some member of Congress 
who desired Lincoln’s renomination, Stevens con¬ 
ducted him to the desk of Arnold, a member from 
Chicago and a personal friend of the President, 
saying: “Here is a man who wants to find a 
Lincoln Member of Congress. You are the only 
one I know and I have come over to introduce 
my friend to you.” Of course there was more or 
less Stevens humor in this sally, but it illustrates 
the fact that many of those nearest to the Presi¬ 
dent, who apparently had the best opportunity for 
close analysis and a just estimate, appraised him 
less truly than did the great mass of the people. 
This by no means proves that his critics were 
wholly in the wrong, nor that those who were 
constantly urging a more aggressive policy were 
mistaken in their course. Too little stress has 

7. Two children were born of this marriage: Grace Giddings, b. 
Sept. 11, 1865, m. Charles B. Clarke, Indianapolis attorney, 1887; and 
Paul, b. July 7, 1867, civil engineer. 

8. Vol. IV, p. 462. 


250 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


been placed upon the great service rendered by 
those Civil War statesmen who persistently in¬ 
culcated the ideas which were afterwards adopted 
by the Administration. L. Maria Child truth¬ 
fully characterizes this type when she says of 
Julian: “He conceived that the people in mak¬ 
ing him their public servant had placed him on 
the watch-tower, and that it was his duty to per¬ 
form the part of a faithful sentinel.” 9 If 
Lincoln’s strength lay largely in his ability to in¬ 
terpret public opinion and in moving no more 
rapidly than the great body of the people was 
ready to follow, it was all-important that con¬ 
stant and well directed efforts should be put forth 
to educate public sentiment to the point of appre¬ 
hending the true situation in order that its de¬ 
mands might meet the needs of the hour. 

Julian had for years been a devoted friend of 
Secretary Chase, who was the acknowledged rep¬ 
resentative and spokesman of the anti-slavery 
sentiment in President Lincoln’s cabinet. He ad¬ 
mired Chase’s intellectual acumen, was in accord 
with his public policy and liked him as a man. 
He would have been glad of his nomination for 
the presidency in 1856 and again in 1860. It was 
therefore not unnatural that he should have been 
offered a place on the central committee which 
had charge of the movement to secure for Chase 
the nomination in 1864, but this he declined and 
a reference in his Journal to the latter’s “over- 


9. Introduction, by L. Maria Child to Julian’s Speeches, p. 12. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


251 


weening ambition” shows that he had become 
somewhat disillusioned. 10 He still regarded Lin¬ 
coln as too slow and was not in accord with his 
Reconstruction policy as set forth in his annual 
message of December, 1863, but all things con¬ 
sidered, his renomination seemed to promise more 
for the cause of the Union and the slave than the 
selection of anyone else, and Julian considered the 
Cleveland convention that nominated Fremont a 
grave mistake. 11 

Lincoln’s continued faith in McClellan in the 
face of abundant evidence of his incompetence and 
the belief of many persons that the General was 
actually disloyal, was exasperating to members of 
the War Committee. However, they themselves 
would have been seriously puzzled to find a capa¬ 
ble successor, for the reputations of our great 
Civil War military leaders were yet to be won. 
The investigations of this committee into south¬ 
ern atrocities, particularly at Fort Pillow, their 
visits to battle fields and hospitals, together with 
the testimony of officers, all strengthened the im¬ 
pression that the war policy of the government 
could not be defended. It was a time of painful 
uncertainty, of hazardous experiments, of mis- 

10. February 16, 1864. 

11. Among the leaders of public opinion who strongly desired an¬ 
other candidate than Lincoln were Charles Sumner, Whitelaw Reid and 
John Jay. Rhodes, Vol. IV, p. 519. Rhodes also quotes Richard 
Smith, editor of the Cincinnati Gazette, to the effect that Lincoln’s 
candidacy was regarded as a misfortune. “I do not know a Lincoln 
man, and in all our correspondence, which is large and varied, I have 
seen few letters from Lincoln men.” In the light of subsequent events 
all this possesses a unique interest. 


252 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

takes and mis judgments. This was inevitable 
and but repeats the history of every national and 
international upheaval. 

Next to the abolition of slavery, the policy of 
the government in dealing with its unoccupied do¬ 
main was the most engrossing interest of Julian's 
public life, and his position as chairman of the 
Committee on Public Lands, to which he had been 
appointed by Speaker Colfax on the organization 
of the Thirty-eighth Congress, gave him a decided 
vantage ground for the presentation of measures 
bearing on this particular subject. Of course his 
duties as a member of the Committee on the Con¬ 
duct of the War still demanded much time, but 
two of the three speeches delivered by him in this 
Congress dealt directly with land matters. He 
regarded the Homestead Law, which he had first 
urged in 1851, and which was finally approved in 
May, 1862, as one of the steps in the steady march 
towards freedom. Its recognition of the dignity 
of labor and the equal rights of the masses nat¬ 
urally arrayed against it the supporters of slav¬ 
ery, who fought it to the last, and its success 
was one of the recognized signs that their day 
was drawing to a close. 

In January, 1864, he laid before the Commit¬ 
tee on Public Lands a proposition to extend the 
Homestead Law to the forfeited and confiscated 
lands of the South. After studying the question 
for months he had come to the conclusion that 
these lands should be dealt with as public lands 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


253 


and parcelled out in small homesteads among the 
poor of the South, both white and black, who had 
aided in the military service of the north either 
as soldiers or laborers. This plan met with the 
approval of Solicitor Whiting of the War Depart¬ 
ment, whose advice Julian sought, and so with the 
consent of the Land Committee he reported a bill 
embodying his ideas on the subject. In his speech 
of March 18, 1864, in advocacy of this bill, 12 he 
again linked the questions of land monopoly and 
slavery by declaring that the present struggle was 
not only a slaveholders’ rebellion, but also a re¬ 
bellion of land-holders, in as much as three- 
fourths at least of the lands in the seceding States 
belonged to the slavemasters, who constituted 
only about one-fiftieth of the population. The 
bill he presented therefore contemplated no gen¬ 
eral seizure and confiscation, no sweeping viola¬ 
tion of the rights of the masses, but simply the 
breaking up and distribution of vast monopolies 
which had made the few the virtual owners of 
the multitude, white as well as black. This meas¬ 
ure would vest in the United States the lands 
forfeited by confiscation in punishment of 
treason, a course for which there was ample 
justification. 

The war which the secessionists were waging 
was no longer a mere insurrection or riot, but a 
civil, territorial war between them and the United 
States. Having taken their stand outside of the 

12. Julian’s Speeches, p. 212. Con. Globe, 38th Cong. 1st Sess. 
p. 1185. 


254 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

Constitution and rested their cause on the naked 
ground of lawless might, they had of course no 
constitutional rights. They were belligerents, 
enemies, traitors, having simply the rights of 
war, and he quoted recent decisions of the Su¬ 
preme Court of the United States in support of 
this contention. He insisted that the government 
had the right to confiscate the fee simple of all 
who had seceded, and referred to the President's 
refusal at the last session of Congress, on account 
of constitutional scruples, to sanction the passage 
of such a measure as a grave mistake. 

“The builders of our national ship did not so 
fashion and rig her that she could sail only in 
calm weather and over smooth seas, but they 
qualified her to ride out the fiercest tempest in 
safety and to defy all pirates. That the nation 
in this struggle for its life against red-handed 
traitors and assassins has no power to confiscate 
their lands is a proposition which gives comfort 
to every rebel sympathizer in the country . . . 

The people know better, and on this question their 
voice must be heeded. They do not believe, but 
they knoiv that the lands of rebels are subject to 
our power under the laws of war, as well as their 
personal property, their negroes, or their lives. 
The government in the course of this struggle has 
learned many lessons. Others are yet to be mas¬ 
tered. Having learned how to strike at slavery 
as the wicked cause of the war, and to arm the 
negroes in the national defense, it must now lay 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


255 


hold of the lands of rebels. I believe our triumph 
over them is not so near as we generally suppose. 
The most terrific fighting of the war is yet to 
come. They do not dream of surrender, or com¬ 
promise, on any conceivable terms . . . They 

must be overcome and crushed by the powers of 
war, and we must employ with all the might 
which can be kindled by the crisis every weapon 
known to the law of nations. Congress must re¬ 
peal the joint resolution of last year which pro¬ 
tects the fee of rebel land owners. The 
President, as I am well advised, now stands ready 
to join us in such action. 13 Should we fail to do 
this, the courts must so interpret the joint reso¬ 
lution as to make its repeal needless. Should both 
Congress and the courts stand in the way of the 
nation’s life, then The red lightning of the peo¬ 
ple’s wrath’ must consume the recreant men who 
refuse to execute the people’s will. Our country, 
united and free, must be saved at whatever haz¬ 
ard or cost; and nothing, not even the Constitu¬ 
tion, must be allowed to hold back the uplifted 
arm of the government in blasting the power of 
the rebels forever.” 14 

He pleaded for a subdivision of the land on be- 

13. President Lincoln told Julian on July 2nd, that he had 
changed his mind on this point and referred to Solicitor Whiting’s 
argument as a factor in bringing about his altered view. Julian’s 
Recollections, p. 245. 

Julian expressed great disappointment over the failure of Presi¬ 
dent Lincoln to sign the Confiscation Act of July 17, 1862, until it 
had been amended so as to exempt the fee of southern land owners 
from its operation. See Recollections, p. 219. 

14. Globe, 38th Cong. 1st Sess. p. 1187. 


256 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

half of patriotism, since every man who has a 
home to love and to defend naturally loves his 
country. Every moment of delay was a golden 
opportunity lost forever. Under the present pol¬ 
icy of the government thousands of acres of for¬ 
feited lands were every day being transferred to 
speculators. Last September the President of 
the United States had issued instructions to the 
South Carolina tax commissioners providing for 
the sale of 40,845 acres, of which 24,316 acres 
were to be sold to the highest bidder in tracts of 
320 acres. 

“If any people have a divine right to these 
tropical lands, they are the slaves who have 
bought them over and over by their sweat and 
toil and blood, through centuries of oppression. 
Degraded and embruted by servitude, mere chil¬ 
dren in knowledge and self-help, we require them 
to compete for their homesteads with the sharp¬ 
ened faculties of the white speculator, schooled 
in avarice by generations of money-getting. Had 
I the power I would give a free home on the for¬ 
feited lands of rebels to every bondman in the 
insurrectionary districts. Let the government at 
least give him an equal chance with our own race 
in the settlement and enjoyment of his native 
land. . . . He is excluded from the northern 

States and Territories by their uncongenial cli¬ 
mate, by his attachments to his birth-place, and 
by Anglo-Saxon domination and enterprise. Let 
the government, which has so long connived at his 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


257 




oppression, now make sure to him a free home¬ 
stead on the land of his oppressor. Let us deal 
justly with the African and thereby lay claim to 
justice for ourselves.” 15 

Julian's bill passed the House on May 12th by a 
vote of seventy-five to sixty-four, on strictly par¬ 
ty lines. 16 It was while he was making his clos¬ 
ing plea for this measure that he was frequently 
interrupted by Fernando Wood, Representative 
from New York, and Robert Mallory of Kentucky, 
the latter of whom afterwards accused Julian of 
having interpolated forged additions to his re¬ 
marks in the Congressional Globe. After a spir¬ 
ited interchange in which members testified both 
for Julian and Mallory, the verbatim record of 
the Globe reporter was found, completely vindi¬ 
cating Julian, and Mallory was obliged to retract 
his charge. 17 

Julian was disappointed that the National Re- 

t 

publican platform of 1864 did not endorse the con¬ 
fiscation of the lands of rebels in fee and their 
disposition under the Homestead Law. The sub¬ 
committee on resolutions reported favorably such 
a plank, the endorsement of which by the Na¬ 
tional Union League he had already secured, but 
the opposition of Representative McKee Dunn of 
Indiana was responsible for its rejection by the 
full committee. Julian always thought that the 
failure to deal summarily with Confederates in 

15. Ibid. p. 1188. 

16. Ibid. 38th Cong. 1st Sess. p. 2253. 

17. Ibid. 38th Cong. 1st Sess. p. 2364. 


17—24142 


258 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


the matter of landed estates was one cause of the 
prolongation of the war, and that its effect in 
leaving the former slaveholders in possession of 
vast estates while the slaves and the poor whites 
who had been friendly to the Union were left des¬ 
titute, was a powerful factor in delaying the 
necessary readjustment of living conditions in the 
south following the war. 

The nomination of Andrew Johnson as Lin¬ 
coln’s running mate in 1864 was a distinct mis¬ 
take in Julian’s view, because Johnson did “not 
reside in the United States”, (his home was in 
Tennessee) and did not believe in the principles 
embodied in the platform. He had first known 
Johnson during the session of 1849-1850, when a 
common interest in the Homestead policy had 
drawn them together, but more recently he had 
been impressed with his southern bias, as well as 
his intemperance, and distrusted him accordingly. 

During the Congressional vacation Julian made 
a thorough canvass of his district. Later, under 
the auspices of the State Central Committee he 
entered upon a more extended tour which, how¬ 
ever, was cut short in September by a severe at¬ 
tack of ague, a disease then common in the mid¬ 
west, of which the present generation knows 
little and the rigors of which can scarcely be ex¬ 
aggerated. Every other day, or in some cases 
every day, the victim was seized with a chill, so 
violent that the teeth chattered and the shaking 
of the body sometimes became so fierce that the 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


259 


bed on which he lay actually rattled. This con¬ 
tinued from fifteen minutes to an hour, and was 
followed by high fever, the result of which of 
course was exceedingly debilitating, especially 
when continued for weeks or months. On this 
occasion Julian suffered for nearly three months, 
and life became so great a burden that he decid¬ 
edly preferred death rather than existence under 
conditions so trying. While in this frame of 
mind a friend brought him a copy of the ‘Book of 
Job’ which he pondered as he had never done be¬ 
fore, and the effect of which was saving. Hope 
came to him, and with it returned after a time 
courage and a more normal bodily state, so that 
he was able to resume his labors in the last session 
of the Thirty-eighth Congress. 

Julian's habit of reviewing the past with a view 
to drawing therefrom conclusions which should 
serve as guides or warnings for the future is well 
illustrated in his speech of February 7, 1865, on 
“Radicalism and Conservatism". 18 The war was 
now drawing to a close, due in great part he de¬ 
clared to the changed policy of the administration 
in meeting it. Instead of disavowing the inten¬ 
tion to coerce the revolting States, as the Presi¬ 
dent had done in his message of July, 1861; 
instead of insisting that it was not the purpose 
to “subjugate" the villains who had begun the 
work of organized rapine and murder, as Con¬ 
gress had done on the day after the Battle of 


18. Julian’s Speeches, p. 229. Globe, 38th Cong. 2nd Sess. p. 65. 


260 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

Bull Run; instead of calling them “our misguided 
fellow-citizens” and “our erring Southern breth- 
ren” as had been the custom during the first year 
of the war; instead of keeping our grand armies 
inactive and conducting a war “on peace prin¬ 
ciples’' we had latterly been witnessing a genuine 
offensive. “That this sickly policy of an inof¬ 
fensive war has naturally prolonged the struggle 
and greatly augmented its cost no one can doubt. 
That it belongs, with its entire legacy of frightful 
results exclusively to the conservative element in 
our politics which at first ruled the Administra¬ 
tion is equally certain. The radical men saw at 
first as clearly as they see today the character and 
spirit of this revolt. The massacre at Fort Pil¬ 
low, the starvation of our soldiers at Richmond, 
and the whole black catalogue of rebel atrocities, 
have been only so many verified predictions of 
the men who had studied the institution of slav¬ 
ery and who regarded the war as the natural fruit 
and culmination of its Christless career. And 
hence it was that in the very beginning they were 
in favor of its vigorous prosecution. They knew 
the foe with whom we had to wrestle. . . . 

They knew that in struggling with such a foe we 
were shut up to one grand and inevitable neces¬ 
sity and duty, and that was entire and absolute 
subjugation At last this lesson had been 
learned by the government, which “no longer gets 
frightened at the word subjugate, . . . but 

is manfully and successfully endeavoring to place 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


261 




the yoke of the Constitution upon the unbaptized 
necks of the scoundrels who have thrown it off. 
The war is now recognized as a struggle of num¬ 
bers, of desperate physical violence, to be fought 
out to the bitter end, without stopping to count 
its cost in money or blood. Both the people and 
our armies, under this new dispensation, have 
been learning how to hate rebels as Christian 
patriots ought to have done from the beginning. 
They have been learning how to hate rebel sym¬ 
pathizers also, and to brand them as even meaner 
than rebels outright . . . Had the govern¬ 

ment been animated by a like spirit at the begin¬ 
ning of the outbreak, practically accepting the 
truth that there can be no middle ground between 
treason and loyalty, rebel sympathizers would 
have given the country far less trouble than they 
have done. A little wholesome severity, sum¬ 
marily administered, would have been a sovereign 
panacea.” 19 

But Julian asserted that a vigorous prosecution 
of the war was not enough. While the struggle 
was one of violence and numbers, it was likewise 
and still more emphatically a war of ideas, a con¬ 
flict between two civilizations, wrestling for the 
mastery of the country. But the government in 
the beginning did not believe this; for nearly two 
years it insisted that slavery had nothing to do 
with the war. When a proclamation was issued 
giving freedom to the slaves of rebels in Missouri, 


19. Ibid. p. 66. 


262 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

it was promptly revoked in order to please the 
State of Kentucky and placate the power that be¬ 
gan the war, and swarms of stalwart negroes who 
came thronging to our lines tendering us the use 
of their muscles were driven away by our com¬ 
manders, while thousands of our soldiers were 
compelled to dig and ditch in the swamps of the 
Chickahominy till the cold sweat of death gath¬ 
ered on the handles of their spades. But at last, 
through great suffering and sacrifice, individual 
and national, our rulers had come to see that “the 
rebellion is slavery, armed with the powers of 
war, organized for wholesale schemes of aggres¬ 
sion, and animated by the overflowing fullness of 
its infernal genius.” The government had 
changed its base; it had become dis-enchanted. 
Congress had taken the lead in ushering in the 
new dispensation: our armies had been forbidden 
to return fugitive slaves; slavery had been abol¬ 
ished in the District of Columbia and prohibited 
in the national Territories; the Federal judiciary 
had been re-organized so as to make sure this 
anti-slavery legislation of Congress; the confisca¬ 
tion of slaves was provided for and freedom was 
offered to all who would come and help us either 
as soldiers or laborers; the Fugitive Slave Law 
had been repealed; and the President himself had 
at last “marched up to the full height of the na¬ 
tional emergency and proclaimed To all whom it 
may concern’ that slavery must perish.” 20 


20. Emancipation Proclamation, Jan. 1, 1863. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


263 


Julian insisted that the work must go on; sys¬ 
tematic legislation must be enacted for the recon¬ 
struction of the seceded States; the negro must be 
enfranchised; the forfeited and confiscated lands 
of the Confederates must be parceled out in small 
homesteads among soldiers and seamen of the 
war. He declared that the oft-repeated plea that 
the people were not ready for decisive steps was 
less a fact than a pretext. “The men who loved 
slavery more than they loved the Union were 
never ready for radical measures. They are not 
ready today. On the other hand, the men who 
were all the while unconditionally for the Union 
would have sustained the administration far more 
heartily in the most thorough and sweeping meas¬ 
ures than they sustained its policy of delaying 
those measures to the last hour. The truth is, 
the people have stood by the government for the 
sake of the cause, whether its policy pleased them 
or not. Their faith and patience have been 
singularly unflinching throughout the entire 
struggle. They would not distrust the President 
without the strongest reasons. They were ever 
ready to credit him with good intentions and to 
presume in favor of his superior means of knowl¬ 
edge . . . Sir, this feeling of unconquerable 

respect for our chosen rulers, this Anglo-Saxon 
regard for constituted authority, has been evinced 
by the people through all phases of the war. Most 
assuredly it would not have been found wanting 
had the government inaugurated a radical policy 


264 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

instead of a conservative one, during the first 
year and a half of the struggle. . . . 

“I agree that slavery had done much to drug 
the conscience of the country with its insidious 
poison. I know that we had so long made our 
bed with slaveholders that kicking them out was 
rather an awkward business. As brethren, liv¬ 
ing under a common government, we had long 
journeyed together and our habits and traditions 
naturally took the form of obstacles to a just pol¬ 
icy in dealing with them as rebels and public 
enemies. It was by no means easy at once to 
recognize them as such. All this is granted, and 
that in the beginning the country was not pre¬ 
pared for every radical measure now being em¬ 
ployed by the government. But it was the duty 
of the administration to do its part in preparing 
the country. Clothed with solemn official author¬ 
ity, and intrusted by the nation with the sworn 
duty of serving it in such a crisis, it had no right 
to become the foot-ball of events. It had no right 
at such a time to make itself a negative expression 
or an unknown quantity in the algebra which was 
to work out the grand problem. It had no right 
to take shelter beneath a debauched and sickly 
public sentiment, and plead it in bar of the great 
duty imposed upon it by the crisis. It had no 
right, certainly, to lag behind that sentiment, to 
magnify its extent and potency, and to become its 
virtual ally, instead of endeavoring to control it, 
and to indoctrinate the country with ideas suited 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


265 


to the emergency. . . . Sir, our traditional 

respect for slavery and slaveholders was our 
grand peril. It stood up as an impassable barrier 
in the way of any successful war for the Union. 
. . . It made the Old World our enemy and 

threatened us with foreign war. The mission of 
the government was not to make this feeling 
stronger by deferring to it, or to doom the coun¬ 
try to a prolonged war and deplorable sacrifices 
as the best means of teaching the people the 
truth. No, the country needed a speedy exodus 
from the bondage of false ideas, and the govern¬ 
ment should have pointed the way. A frank 
statement by it of the real issue of the war, with¬ 
out any'disposition to cover up the truth; an un¬ 
mistakable hostility to slavery as the organized 
curse without which the rebellion would have 
been impossible; and the timely utterance in its 
leading State papers of a few bold and spirit- 
stirring words which might have been ‘half bat¬ 
tles’, appealing to the courage and manhood of 
the nation, would have gone far to educate the 
judgment and conscience of the people and to 
command their enthusiastic espousal of whatever 
measures would promise most speedily to end the 
struggle and economize its cost in property and 
life.” 21 

The speech closed with a fine tribute to the 
anti-slavery pioneers, who believed with their 
whole hearts in the Declaration of Independence, 

21. Cong. Globe, 38th Cong. 2nd Sess. Appendix p. 67. 


266 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

accepting its teachings as coincident with the Gos¬ 
pel of Christ. “For them there was no 'eclipse of 
faith'. Just as the nation began to lapse from 
the grand ideas of our Revolutionary era, they 
began to 'cry aloud and spare not', and they never 
ceased or slackened their labors ... To fol¬ 
low these apostles and martyrs was to forsake all 
the prizes of life which worldly prudence or ambi¬ 
tion could value or covet. It was to take up the 
heaviest cross yet fashioned by this century as 
the test of Christian character and heroism. The 
failure of men thus devoted to a great and holy 
cause was morally impossible. Through their 
courage, constancy and faith, they gradually se¬ 
cured the co-operation or sympathy of the better 
type of men of all parties and creeds. They 
seriously disturbed or broke in pieces the great 
political and ecclesiastical organizations of the 
land; and even before the war their ideas were 
rapidly taking captive the popular heart. When 
it came, they saw as by intuition the character of 
the struggle, as the final phase of slaveholding 
madness and crime, and insisted upon the early 
adoption of that radical policy which the govern¬ 
ment was at last compelled to accept. I believe 
it safe to say that the moral appeals and per¬ 
sistent criticism of these men, and of the far 
greater numbers who borrowed or sympathized 
with their views, saved our cause from the com¬ 
plete control of Conservatism and thus preserved 
the country itself from destruction. Going at 



GEORGE W. JULIAN 


267 


once to the heart of our conflict, they pointed out 
the only remedy, and felt compelled to reprobate 
the failure of the government to adopt it. They 
judged its policy in war, as they had done in 
peace, in the light of its fidelity or infidelity to 
human rights. By this test they tried every man 
and party, and they need ask for no other rule of 
judgment for themselves. The administration, 
and the chief actors in this drama of war, of 
whatever political school, must be weighed in the 
same great balance. Not even the founders of 
the Republic will be spared from the trial. In 
their compromise with slavery in the beginning, 
which is now seen to have been the germ of this 
horrid conflict, they 'swerved from the right’. 
Posterity must so pronounce; and the record 
which dims the lustre of their great names will 
be read in the flames of this war as a warning 
against all future compacts with evil. Justice to 
public men is as certain as that truth is omnip¬ 
otent. It may be delayed for a season; it may 
be hidden from the vision of men of little faith; 
but its final triumph is sure. To the world’s true 
heroes and confessors history ever sends its word 
of cheer:— 

The good can well afford to wait; 

Give ermined knaves their hour of crime; 

Ye have the future, grand and great,— 

The safe appeal of truth to time.’ ”. 22 


22. Ibid. p. 68. 


CHAPTER XI 


Land Matters—Death of Lincoln—The New 
President—Speech on Reconstruction — 

—Attack by Meredith 

The rapidly increasing war debt led to various 
and sometimes preposterous proposals as to the 
raising of revenue, among others that the Home¬ 
stead Law be repealed and all public lands be 
placed on the market. Aside from the im¬ 
possibility of meeting an obligation so enor¬ 
mous, or even the interest thereon, in this way, 
Julian recognized that such a step would inevi¬ 
tably play into the hands of monopolists; more¬ 
over, under no circumstances would he counte¬ 
nance any interference with the Homestead 
policy, the benefits of which he now saw an oppor¬ 
tunity to extend while also helping to relieve the 
financial strain. It was however not so much 
with the hope of immediate action as of opening 
the way to future legislation that he brought for¬ 
ward his Mineral Land Bill . 1 

Up to this time the government had had no pol¬ 
icy respecting its mineral lands except the nega¬ 
tive one of reserving such lands from sale. This 
statement does not include the lead mines of Illi¬ 
nois, Iowa, Missouri, Michigan and Wisconsin, 
where the principle of sales had finally been 

1. Feb. 2, 1865, Cong. Globe. 38th Cong. 2nd Sess. p. 562. 


(268) 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


269 


adopted, but only the gold and silver mines of the 
far west from which it was estimated a thousand 
million dollars in precious metals had been taken 
within the past sixteen years, the only profit ac¬ 
cruing to the government being the very small tax 
on bullion. 

The measure which Julian now proposed and 
which had the approval of the Committee on Pub¬ 
lic Lands provided for vesting the fee of these 
lands in individual proprietors by public sale, in¬ 
stead of retaining the title in the government and 
treating their occupants as tenants at will. It 
contemplated their survey and subdivision into 
small tracts of not more than forty acres each, 
fully protecting all vested rights however, as well 
as the right of exploration and discovery. His 
speech of February 9, 1865, in behalf of his bill 2 
contains a clear and concise history of our min¬ 
ing policy from the beginning of the government 
and is of value too, because it deals in an engag¬ 
ing manner with a subject of importance about 
which the average person knows little or nothing. 
The measure failed of enactment, but was again 
brought forward in the next Congress 3 with the 
emphatic endorsement of Chief Justice Chase and 
Secretary McCulloch as well as that of many able 
men from the mining States and Territories. 

By this time considerable opposition had been 
aroused, led by the Senators from California and 


2. Julian’s Speeches, p. 245. Globe, 38th Cong. 2nd Sess. p. 684. 

3. Globe, Dec. 13, 1865. 39th Cong. 1st Sess. p. 49. 


270 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

Nevada who succeeded in putting through the 
Senate another and very different measure, 
which, while giving title to the miners, practically 
cut off these lands from all jurisdiction on the 
part of the national government with its recog¬ 
nized and well settled machinery for determining 
questions of title and boundary and handed them 
over to “the local custom or rules of miners”. 
These local rules were to govern the miner in 
the location, extension and boundary of his claim, 
the manner of its development and the survey 
also, which was to be executed not with reference 
to base lines and under the authority of the 
United States, but in utter disregard of the same. 
In case of conflict between claimants the local 
courts were to decide, without any right of appeal 
to the local Land Office, the General Land office 
or any Federal court. The Senate bill not only 
ignored the rectangular system of surveys, but 
provided that every claimant should have the 
right to follow his vein or lode “with its angles, 
dips and variations, to any depth, although it 
may enter the land adjoining, which land adjoin¬ 
ing shall be sold subject to this condition.” 4 The 
crudely extemporized “rules of the miners” with 
their instability and uncertainty were thus made 
the basis of title when they should have been 
swept away and a system of permanence and 
peace substituted through the appointed agency 
of the Land Department. 


4. Acts of Cong. 39th Cong. 1st Sess. Ch. 262, p. 252, Sec. 2. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


271 


This clumsy and next to incomprehensive meas¬ 
ure was finally forced through the House of Rep¬ 
resentatives by sharp practice, including the 
striking out of another bill with the exception of 
the enacting clause and the substitution of the 
Senate bill which was then before the House 
Public Land Committee. Julian fought this action 
ably, and time has abundantly justified his posi¬ 
tion. Although the measure adopted conceded the 
principle of ownership in fee, which he had been 
the first to advocate, the failure of its complicated 
machinery stands confessed in the endless litiga¬ 
tion which has followed and in repeated and only 
partially successful efforts to amend it. The 
soundness of his views was further confirmed 
many years afterwards by the report and recom¬ 
mendations of the commission appointed during 
the administration of President Hayes which 
declared that the law enacted might properly be 
designated “An Act to cause the government to 
join, upon unknown terms, with an unknown 
second party, to convey to a third party an il¬ 
lusory title to an indefinite thing, and encourage 
the subsequent robbery thereof.” 5 

As the friend of settlers and pre-emptors and 
the advocate of their rights Julian was destined 
to meet repeatedly the full force of the hostility 
of western land grabbers and monopolists and to 
realize not only their readiness to resort to dis¬ 
honest methods but also the enormous power by 


5. Political Recollections , p. 294. 


272 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

which they were backed. His efforts on behalf 
of homesteaders during this and the succeeding 
session, although only partially successful so far 
as immediate results were concerned, called forth 
gratifying testimonials from hundreds whom he 
sought to serve besides arming him with a knowl¬ 
edge that was to prove of great service twenty 
years later in dealing with New Mexican land 
questions. 

In the evening of April 14th, at the hour when 
President Lincoln was setting out for Ford’s 
Theatre to witness the performance of “Our 
American Cousin” the Committee on the Conduct 
of the War was returning to Washington from a 
four-days’ excursion to Richmond and other points 
for the purpose of taking further testimony. The 
intention had been to go as far as Charleston, 
S. C., but Senators Wade and Chandler refused 
to proceed beyond Fortress Monroe, and so the 
return to Washington was earlier than had been 
intended. Soon after retiring that night Julian 
was aroused by the clerk of the Land Committee, 
W. L. Woods, who exclaimed that President 
Lincoln had been shot, likewise Secretary Seward 
and son, and that assassins were about to take 
the city. Dressing hastily and going forth he 
found the streets packed with stunned and en¬ 
raged people who paced to and fro throughout 
the night, one wild rumor succeeding another 
until 7:30 the next morning when the church 
bells tolled the death of the President. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


273 


At the meeting of Senators and Representa¬ 
tives called to arrange for the funeral Julian was 
made a member of the Committee of Escort to 
accompany the remains to Springfield, an honor 
he declined because he felt that his duty lay in 
Washington. 6 He attended the services in the 
East Room and was deeply impressed by that 
outpouring of the people which had no precedent 
in our history; the obsequies of President Taylor 
which he had witnessed in 1840 bearing no com¬ 
parison either in point of numbers or heart 
quality. The apotheosis of Abraham Lincoln had 
begun, although the extent to which time and 
further revelations would bring out the lofty and 
benign qualities of his character while minimiz¬ 
ing defects could not then be foreseen. 

The new President at once became the center 
of interest to both conservatives and radicals, who 
seem to have congratulated themselves by turns 
that he was on their side. For only a brief period, 
probably a week at most, was Julian deceived in 
regard to Johnson’s position. His call upon him 
on April 21st in company with a group of fellow 
Hoosiers headed by Governor Morton left no pos¬ 
sibility of misunderstanding the ideas of either 
Johnson or Morton on the subject of Reconstruc¬ 
tion. This was the outstanding and dominant 

6. “This evening attended the meeting of Senators and Repre¬ 
sentatives to make arrangements as to the funeral of the President. 
I am on the Committee of Escort to convey the remains to Spring- 
field. I cannot leave my duties here. The excitement increases grow¬ 
ing out of the President’s murder.” Julian’s Journal, Monday evening, 
April 17, 1865. 


18—24142 


274 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

issue of the hour, and Julian’s wide dissent from 
their views was to furnish the key-note for one 
of the most notable campaigns of his career. 

After the adjournment of Congress and the con¬ 
clusion of his labors as a member of the Commit¬ 
tee on the Conduct of the War which detained 
him in Washington several weeks longer, he re¬ 
turned to Centerville, and having rested a brief 
while went forth to “break ground” on the sub¬ 
ject of negro suffrage. He first discussed this 
before his constituents at Dublin, Wayne County, 
and devoted the months of August, September, 
October, and November to a canvass in which he 
dealt with the question in all its aspects and of 
course without fear or favor. In the beginning he 
found the Republicans generally unprepared to fol¬ 
low him, including even a considerable portion of 
the old anti-slavery wing of the party; but confi¬ 
dent that he was right he believed he could revolu¬ 
tionize the current opinion as he had done in 
other cases. The views of the opposition were 
voiced by Governor Morton, who on September 
29, 1865, delivered his much discussed Richmond 
speech in which he endorsed the Johnson scheme 
of reconstruction and declared that it differed 
from Lincoln’s only in being more stringent in 
regard to amnesty. 

In considering the subject of reconstruction, 
one of the most vexatious with which our govern¬ 
ment has been called upon to deal, it is well to 
bear in mind a remark to which approving ref- 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


275 


erence is made by Julian in his review of McCall's 
Life Of Thaddeus Stevens , 7 to the effect that the 
wisdom which passes judgment upon a situation 
half a century afterwards has an obvious advan¬ 
tage over the wisdom which has to deal with it 
at the time. He also called attention more than 
once to the unfairness of the assumption that 

i 

Lincoln was absolutely wedded to any particular 
plan and insisted that Lincoln would never have 
engaged, as his successor did in a pitched battle 
with Congress. 8 

The only aim here is to set forth briefly Julian's 
attitude on this great issue about which wise men 
held diametrically opposing views and in which 
so many elements were involved that even at this 
distance and in the light of subsequent history 
one is frequently puzzled and confused. No one 
who has followed his career thus far could be 
in doubt as to his position on certain fundamentals 
or that his stand would be determined largely by 
basic principles. In a savage arraignment of 
Julian in 1865 the Indianapolis Journal declared 
that “having given his whole life to the slavery 
question he knows comparatively nothing else." 9 
Accepting this as true in the sense that the in- 

7. The Dial, Chicago, Sept. 1, 1899. 

8. “Unfinished Review” of Foulke’s Life of Morton, Indianapolis 
Neivs, Jan. 30, 1901. See Rhodes on Lincoln’s “Anglo-Saxon adapta¬ 
tion of the means at hand.” Also his quotation from Lincoln,—“I have 
not put forth that plan (in Message of Dec. 3, 1863) as a Procrustean 
bed to which exact conformity is to be indispensable.” History of 
U. S. Vol. V, p. 55. 

9. Indianapolis Daily Journal, Nov. 18, 1865. 


276 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

iquity of slavery overshadowed every other inter¬ 
est in his view, and bearing in mind at the same 
time his unshakable belief in the doctrines of the 
Declaration of Independence, it is easy to see 
that his acceptance of the idea of equal rights 
both civil and political for the negro was inevi¬ 
table. 

Knowing the spirit of slavery and likewise the 
character of the slave masters as displayed during 
the last quarter of a century at least, he was con¬ 
vinced that the latter if left to themselves would 
not deal justly with the people who had been the 
innocent cause of the war and all the woes it 
had entailed on their section. Lincoln’s plan of 
reconstruction provided for full pardon for all 
those who had participated in the rebellion on 
condition that they should take an oath to support 
the Constitution of the United States. Their 
property rights with the exception of slaves were 
to be respected, but in regard to slavery they must 
abide by all laws and proclamations made by the 
Federal government during the war. One tenth 
of all voters at the presidential election of 1860 
were recognized as sufficient to establish a new 
State government, the President guaranteeing to 
such state a republican form of government so 
far as the Constitution gave him power to do so, 
but Congress alone could determine as to the ad¬ 
mission to its body of members from those States. 
His plan also contemplated the military protec¬ 
tion of the United States while the state govern¬ 
ments were getting under way. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


277 


The Democrats at once attacked this plan as 
unconstitutional, insisting that the States in rebel¬ 
lion were still in the Union and that therefore 
the President had no power to prescribe condi¬ 
tions for their recognition. The radical Repub¬ 
licans opposed the Lincoln plan on the ground that 
the President had no authority to proceed with 
the work of reconstruction without the co-opera¬ 
tion of Congress, that inasmuch as the seceded 
States were conquered territory, the establishment 
of civil governments therein belonged to the law¬ 
making body, not to the executive, and that the 
Lincoln plan was too lenient. Men like Sumner 
contended that Congress ought to impose negro 
suffrage as a condition precedent to the re-ad¬ 
mission of these states, while Lincoln believed 
that the reconstructed governments could be 
induced by moral suasion to bestow the 
voting privilege on the “very intelligent” negroes 
and such as had “fought gallantly in our ranks.” 10 

The bill proposed by Henry Winter Davis in 
February, 1864, and passed by both Houses of 
Congress provided that a majority of the white 
male citizens of a seceded State might form a new 
state government, and required that the Consti¬ 
tution adopted should prohibit slavery forever. 
Lincoln’s reason for not signing this measure, as 
announced to Senator Chandler was that it 
reached him too late for him to give it the neces¬ 
sary consideration; but his remark a few minutes 


10. Rhodes, Vol. IV, p. 485. 


) 


278 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

later to a group of cabinet members has a wealth 
of meaning in this connection: “I do not see how 
any of us can deny and contradict what we have 
always said, that Congress has no constitutional 
power over slavery in the States.” And secretary 
Fessenden’s rejoinder is equally significant: “I 
have even had my doubts as to the constitutional 
efficacy of your own decree of emancipation in 
those cases where it has not been carried into 
effect by the actual advance of the army.” 11 

That Congress had no power over slavery in 
the States had uniformly been maintained by po¬ 
litical abolitionists like Adams and Giddings, but 
Julian now contended, as did Sumner, Wade and 
Stevens, that the seceding States had by their 
act of seceding abdicated all rights under the 
Constitution which however had abdicated none 
of its rights over them. They were no longer 
States in the sense in which Massachusetts and 
Indiana were States, but conquered provinces, to 
be held as such till conditions prescribed by Con¬ 
gress should be complied with. In regard to the 
Emancipation Proclamation, Julian always in¬ 
sisted that as it was issued under the war power 
it could only be enforced in territory occupied by 
our arms. Each commanding general, pari passu 
with the advance of the Union flag, could offer 
freedom to the slaves, and so could the President. 
Lincoln’s proclamation did not apply to the border 
States, which were loyal and in which slavery of 


11. Ibid. p. 486, note. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


279 


course was not touched. It applied only to dis¬ 
tricts within the military occupation of the Con¬ 
federacy, where it was necessarily void. 

Julian asserted that even if the Proclamation 
could have given freedom to the slaves according 
to its scope, their permanent enfranchisement 
would not have been secured, because the status 
of slavery as it existed under the local laws of 
the States prior to the war would have remained 
after the establishment of peace. All emancipated 
slaves found in those states or returning to them 
would have been subject to slavery as before, for 
the simple reason that no military occupation 
could abolish their municipal laws. Nothing 
short of a constitutional amendment could at once 
give freedom to the negroes and make their re¬ 
enslavement impossible. “All this”, said Julian 
in 1884, “is now attested by very high authorities 
on International and Constitutional law; and while 
it takes nothing from the honor so universally 
accorded to Lincoln as the great Emancipator it 
shows how wisely he employed a grand popular 
delusion in the salvation of this country. His 
proclamation had no present legal effect within 
territory not under the control of our arms, but 
as an expression of the spirit of the people and 
the policy of the Administration it had become 
both a moral and a military necessity.” 12 

But unfortunately Lincoln was not spared to 
help work out the problem of reconstruction and 


12. Political Recollections, p. 228. 


280 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

in his place was a man totally unlike him in 
mental and spiritual quality. It is doubtless true 
that Andrew Johnson was not the moral pervert 
many persons then believed him to be, but as 
one studies the history of that critical period the 
thought is consolingly impressed that the govern¬ 
ment that could weather the storm of his admin¬ 
istration is likely to go on successfully through 
indefinite years. 

Governor Morton's Richmond speech, which 
was undoubtedly designed as a crushing rejoinder 
to the arguments of Julian in the campaign in 
which he was then engaged, was devoted largely to 
negro suffrage which he opposed, insisting that 
the colored people were not ready for the ballot, 
but ought to have a probation of fifteen or twenty 
years in which to become educated, acquire a little 
property and prepare themselves for the exercise 
of political power. He feared lest colored State 
governments should be erected in States where the 
negroes were in the majority, which would shut 
out all immigration, and result in a balance of 
power that might control the national govern¬ 
ment. He held that the crime of treason was 
individual and could only be treated individually, 
that the Southern States had never really been 
outside the Union, and that if they had been we 
should be obliged to assume the Confederate debt. 13 

Perhaps no man was ever more successful than 
Oliver P. Morton in refuting his own arguments. 

13. Foulke’s Morton, Vol. I, pp. 450-451. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


281 


He had the art of earnestly and vigorously demol¬ 
ishing a position which a short while before he 
had as vigorously and earnestly defended, appear¬ 
ing entirely unembarrassed by the performance. 
So it was not at all surprising that within a few 
months of the Richmond speech he declared em¬ 
phatically and unequivocally in favor of negro 
suffrage. Julian recognized Morton's great serv¬ 
ice as war governor of Indiana and declared that 
he was made for revolutionary times. “Success 
was his purpose and he frequently ignored con¬ 
siderations which a more cautious and conscien¬ 
tious man would have found in the way. . . . 

Von Holst in his Constitutional and Political 
History of the United States has a chapter on “The 
Reign of Andrew Jackson." When the history of 
Indiana shall be written it might fitly contain a 
chapter on “The Reign of Oliver P. Morton." He 
made himself the master not merely of the Dem¬ 
ocratic party of the State and of its rebel element 
but of his own party as well. His will to a sur¬ 
prising extent had the force of law in matters of 
both civil and military administration. His vigor 
in action and great personal magnetism so rallied 
the people to his support that with the rarest 
exceptions the prominent leaders of his party suc¬ 
cumbed to his ambition and recoiled from the 
thought of confronting him even when they be¬ 
lieved him in the wrong." 14 

In Julian's speech of November 17, 1865, on 


14. Political Recollections, p. 270. 


282 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

“Dangers and Duties of the Hour ,, , delivered in 
the chamber of the House of Representatives in 
the old State House at Indianapolis, the Legisla¬ 
ture being then in session, he dealt with the lead¬ 
ing arguments of Morton’s Richmond speech. It 
seems well to quote liberally from this address 
because it embodies the message he had been de¬ 
livering all over his district for three months and 
because it illustrates the colloquial as well as 
humorous and sarcastic style which he sometimes 
employed. He spoke without notes, but the speech 
was unexpectedly taken down in shorthand by a 
reporter for the Cincinnati Gazette and after¬ 
wards reprinted by Julian’s friends in a large 
pamphlet edition. 

In the first place Julian made a vigorous plea 
for the execution of the leaders of the Confed¬ 
eracy: he wished it were possible “to hang them 
to the sky that bends over us, so that all the 
nations of the earth might see the spectacle and 
learn what it costs to set fire to a free govern¬ 
ment like this .” 15 It must be borne in mind that 
the prevailing opinion at that time throughout 
the north demanded capital punishment for Lee, 
Davis, and others, the newspapers and even in 
some cases the pulpit asserting that justice could 
be satisfied in no other way. It was a mistaken 
view of course, as was the insistence on the death 
of the German Kaiser in our own day, but in both 
cases it was natural and indeed inevitable. After 


15. Julian’s Speeches, p. 268. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


283 


“hanging liberally” Julian would have the govern¬ 
ment parcel out the large landed estates of the 
secessionists among our soldiers and seamen and 
the poor people of the south, black and white, in 
order to form a basis for genuine democracy. 
Then, to complete the work of reconstruction, he 
would place the ballot in the hands of the loyal 
men of the South. 

“And this makes it necessary for me to talk 
about the negro question a little. I am sorry 
about this, for I hardly ever allude to it in my 
speeches unless it gets right in my way, and then 
I take it up only to remove it so that I can get 
along. I warn you however not to get excited at 
what I am going to say until you know what it 
is; for maybe none of you will disagree with me 
and it is not worth while to anticipate 
trouble. . . . During the War of the Revolu¬ 

tion, that primitive era of the nation's life, that 
golden age of public virtue and private, as we are 
accustomed to regard it, negroes voted in all the 
states or colonies of the Union, except South 
Carolina. In every one of the States except South 
Carolina free negroes had the right to vote and 
in most of the States exercised the right. Wash¬ 
ington, and Jefferson, and Jay and Hancock and 
Hamilton every year went up to the polls and 
deposited their ballots where the negroes did 
theirs, and I never heard that they were defiled 
or that the Union was particularly endangered. 
They stood for the equal rights of all free men at 


284 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


the ballot box without respect to color. . . . 

At the end of the War they were compelled to 
make ‘a more perfect Union’, and in this work 
of making a better Union the free negroes had 
the right to vote in all the States except South 
Carolina. And afterwards they voted under 
Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe 
and Jackson. In five of the New England States 
and in New York they have been voting ever 
since. . . . Some of my North Carolina 

friends will remember that George E. Badger was 
elected by negro votes; John Bell of Tennessee 
also;(and old Cave Johnson, on one occasion, find¬ 
ing that he was about to lose his election, eman¬ 
cipated fifteen or twenty of his own slaves, and 
they went up to the polls and elected him to 
Congress.j Now I have thought that as the ne¬ 
groes are all free down there we might extend this 
Democratic precedent a little further. Even 
Andrew Jackson, Old Hickory himself, who was 
a good Democrat in his day, though he would 
not pass muster now, the old hero who praised 
the negroes for fighting so well at New Orleans 
and who ever afterwards enjoyed their gratitude 
and respect, when a young man called on the 
negroes to help elect the legislature which after¬ 
wards gave him a seat in the Senate of the United 
States; and I think if old Jackson could do so 
naughty a thing as this it would not disgrace a 
Copperhead to have a few negroes vote for 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


285 


him, if they were so crazy as to vote on that 
side. . . , 16 

“Negro suffrage in the South is a chapter in 
the history of this contest as sure to come as was 
the arming of the negro, and you who oppose it 
would do well to stand out of the way, for it will 
sweep over you as remorselessly as would the 
tides of the sea. 

“But I would give the negro the ballot for 
another reason. Before the war broke out the 
South, on the basis of its negro population, had 
eighteen members of Congress. Now they will 
have twelve additional members, or thirty in all, 
based upon a population that is dumb. Subtract 
from the white population in the South those that 
have been killed during the war and that have 
been disfranchised since, and it will not much 
exceed one-third of the whole population; that is 
to say, one white rebel will count equal to three 
loyal men. I always thought it bad enough for 
one rebel to count equal to one loyal man, but 
when you establish this trinity in unity at my 
expense I must kick against it. . . . 

“I would give the negro the ballot for another 
reason, and that is, that every rebel in the South 
and every Copperhead in the North is opposed 
to negro suffrage. If there were no other argu¬ 
ment than this I would be in favor of negro 
enfranchisement. When you know a man to be 
in sympathy with, and doing the work of the devil, 


16. Ibid. pp. 270-271. 


286 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


have you any doubts as to whether or not you are 
on the Lord’s side in fighting him? . . . 

“But there is an objection to the proposition 
to which I wish to call your attention. It is said 
that the negroes are unfit to vote, that they are 
too ignorant; and I have heard it said that they 
need a probation of ten or twenty years to pre¬ 
pare them for the ballot; that they must have 
time to acquire property, knowledge of political 
rights and duties, and then it will do to give them 
the ballot. I don’t understand that argument. 
When you commit the negro to the tender mercies 
of his old tyrant, who proceeds to deny him all 
the advantages of education, the accumulation of 
property, and all social and political privileges, 
how soon will he become prepared for the ballot? 
If you want to prepare the negro for suffrage take 
off his chains and give him equal advantages with 
white men in the battle of life. Don’t charge 
him with unfitness until you have given him equal 
opportunities with others, f Gentlemen, who made 
them unfit? I think it was the rebels. They 
enslaved them, degraded them, brutalized them, 
made them what they are; and after their wicked¬ 
ness has brought on this war and they are mas¬ 
tered, and the question of restoring government 
to the South comes up, then the rebels complain 
of the unfitness of the negroes to vote.) ‘No man’, 
says the legal maxim, ‘shall take advantage of his 
own wrong’. Are you going to be very nice or 
fastidious in selecting a man to vote down a 
rebell Must you have a perfect gentleman and 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


287 


scholar for this work? . . . Sir, I believe in 

the fitness of the people to govern; and if you 
were to present me the alternative of disfranchis¬ 
ing a half million of our people or giving the 
ballot to a half million who have it not, I would 
give the ballot. In the one case, I would open a 
vein that might bleed the Republic to death; in 
the other I would multiply the sources of public 
safety. I believe religiously in democracy; in the 
fitness of the whole people to take care of the 
welfare of the whole people; and while I would 
urge universal education I would urge universal 
suffrage. 

“Gentlemen, another objection I have heard is 
that they will hold all the offices in the South; 
that the whites there will leave, and we shall no 
longer migrate there; that the region will grow 
blacker and blacker, electing negro judges, negro 
governors, negro congressmen, etc., till the finale 
will be a war of races. This, I confess, is a dark 
picture. I cannot however feel alarmed. We 
radicals, dangerous as we are supposed to be, 
will guard against these frightful results. What 
we deprecate is haste in reconstruction. We have 
no thought, for example, of hurrying South Car¬ 
olina into the Union with her ignorant negroes 
and stupid and disloyal whites. We want a season 
of probation, time to re-people the waste places 
within her borders, time for Yankees and Euro¬ 
peans to take possession of the country and supply 
us with a loyal and intelligent element. Then 
there will be no negroes holding office unless a 


288 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

majority of the people want them, and in that 
case a war of races will not be very probable. 1 
have already referred to the policy of negro voting 
in nearly all of the states for some thirty or forty 
years of our history, and I believe it never led 
to negro office holding. Even in Massachucetts 
I remember no case of the sort. . . . Nor has 

negro voting ever led to social equality or mis¬ 
cegenation, to my knowledge. If my Democratic 
friends however feel in danger of marrying negro 
women, I am in favor of a law for their pro¬ 
tection. . . . 

“And now, gentlemen, in conclusion, I come to 
the most formidable objection of all, in the opin¬ 
ion of those who urge it, namely, that the question 
belongs to the States; that Indiana can decide for 
herself who shall vote; Ohio can, Mississippi can, 
the eleven revolted States, being all of them in the 
Union, can determine for themselves exculsive- 
ly who shall vote; and that therefore you and I 
have no concern in the matter. ... I agree, 
gentlemen, that the question belongs to the States 
subject to the reserved right and duty of the 
United States to guarantee republican govern¬ 
ments to the States. I agree further that the re¬ 
volted districts are in the Union, in one sense. 
Their territory is there. I have not heard of its 
removal by the rebels, or by earthquake or other 
convulsion of nature. I agree too that the people 
occupying that territory are in the Union. They 
are not the citizens of any foreign country. They 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


289 


are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States 
and can no more run away from it than a man 
can run away from his shadow. Through their 
treason they have lost their rights in the Union, 
but the Union has lost none of its rights over 
them. I agree further that no State can constitu¬ 
tionally secede. Our fathers never intended that 
the government might fall to pieces at the will 
or whim of any of its parts. All governments 
are intended to be perpetual. No State therefore 
can constitutionally secede, any more than any 
of you can morally tell a lie or commit suicide. 
If, however, you do lie, and we can prove it, the 
lie is out, though you did it immorally; and if you 
cut your throat and the breath goes out of your 
body, I rather think you will be dead, seceded to 
another world, though you will not have gone 
there according to either law or gospel. The truth 
of the matter was well stated by President Lincoln 
when he said that the rebel States are outside of 
their proper constitutional relations to the Union. 
They are, so to speak, outside of that constitutional 
orbit in which they once revolved around the 
Union as their center and sun; and until restored 
they can no more be States in the Union than a 
branch can live when severed from the tree. 
Toward the national government they stand in 
the relation of territories, and are subject entire¬ 
ly to its jurisdiction. 

“As I have already said, these rebel States are 
outside of their constitutional orbit, and they can 


19—24142 


0 


290 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

never get back into it without the consent of Con¬ 
gress. And right here is where the matter of 
suffrage comes under your jurisdiction. Carolina 
for example, asks admission. She must come as 
a territory as to her rights. Suppose she asks 
to be restored with slavery in her Constitution. 
I would see her in paradise before I would receive 
her. Suppose she should ask to come in with 
polygamy. Believing one wife about as many as 
one Christian can get along with, I would not 
receive her. Suppose she should come with can¬ 
nibalism, the right of one Copperhead to eat 
another,—a thing not very offensive in itself,—I 
would not vote for a man-eating Constitution, for 
loyal men might be the victims. Carolina asks 
to come in, and while I am thinking of the ques¬ 
tion I remember a clause in the Constitution 
which says,—“The United States shall guarantee 
to each State a republican form of government.” 
What is a republican form of government, is a 
political question exclusively for Congress to 
decide. Well, I look at her constitution and find 
that it disfranchises two-thirds of her people, and 
they the only loyal ones in her border, and gives 
the ballot to one-third, and they rebels, who 
ought to have been hung or exiled before today. 
Gentlemen, I would decide without hesitation that 
her constitution was not republican in form or in 
fact; and I would slam the door in her face. 
‘What would you do with her?’ you ask. I would 
have Congress put a territorial government over 
her, and President Johnson appoint a chief- 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


291 


justice, a governor, a marshal, etc., and in local 
politics, in electing justices, constables, etc., I 
would set the people to voting. If I should allow 
the rebels to vote, I would be sure to check-mate 
them by the votes of loyal negroes; and thus I 
would train up the people, black and white, to 
the use of the ballot. If they should go astray, 
the supervisory power of Congress would correct 
all mistakes; and after awhile, when a population 
had been secured fit for State government I would, 
if in Congress vote to receive them again into our 
embrace.” 17 

The assembly room was filled with members of 
the Legislature and others, Republicans and Dem¬ 
ocrats, men and women, standing room being at 
a premium, and he was frequently interrupted 
by applause. The speech was widely copied and 
commented on throughout the State and beyond, 
but the Indianapolis Journal , the party organ at 
the Capital, vouchsafed only this notice: 

“Hon. George W. Julian addressed a full house 
last night at the Hall of the House of Rep¬ 
resentatives. The crowded condition of our 
columns precludes any attempt at an abstract 
of his remarks. The burden of his address was 
the wonderful properties of negro suffrage as 
a national cure-all. The member from the 
Burnt District thinks the country will go 
straight to damnation without the colored bal¬ 
lot. He is welcome to his opinions.” 18 

17. Ibid. pp. 272-288. 

18. Indianapolis Journal, Nov. 18, 1865. 


292 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

The Indianapolis Herald, which since November 
1st had superseded the Sentinel as the organ of 
the Democratic party, said: 

“Mr. Julian’s effort was characteristic. The 
most radical of the Indiana Republicans, an 
Abolitionist in principle years ago when Ab¬ 
olitionism was less popular than it is now, he 
was the same impracticable radical on last 
night that he has always been.” 19 

About this time the Journal entered upon the 
most vindictive and bitter stage of its personal 
warfare on Julian. Ten days after the Indianap¬ 
olis speech as he was standing in the ladies’ wait¬ 
ing room of the Richmond railway station on his 
return to Centerville from a shopping expedition, 
his arms laden with parcels and wearing a shawl, 
he was assaulted by Solomon Meredith, a giant 
of six feet and four inches, who after felling him to 
the floor and beating him either with his fists, 
as he declared, or with a piece of metal according 
to Julian, proceeded to apply a rawhide. Mere¬ 
dith had first accosted him in a friendly tone 
asking if he had requested the agent of the 
‘Associated Press’ to publish the news of his 
(Meredith’s) having been relieved of his com¬ 
mand at Paducah, Ky. Julian replied in the nega¬ 
tive, as he did to a similar query as to the editor 
of the National Republican, and supposed he had 
thus satisfied his questioner. The blows that fol¬ 
lowed took him completely by surprise and of 


19. Indianapolis Herald, Nov. 18, 1865. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


293 


course at a disadvantage, for before there was 
any opportunity to defend himself, pinioned as 
he was by his shawl, he was down, and the affair 
was over. 

Judge Nimrod H. Johnson, 20 Roswell Forkner 
and others made ineffectual efforts to interfere, 
but were beaten back by the six or eight bullies 
who had accompanied Meredith to assist if neces¬ 
sary in the task he had undertaken, and who 
formed a line between him and his victim on one 
side and the crowd in the station on the other, 
calling out, “Give it to him!” “Flog the d—d 
Abolitionist!” “Hands off!” “Let them two 
fight it out!” etc. Having accomplished their 
mission, Meredith and his coadjutors withdrew 
as suddenly as they had come upon the scene and 
Julian, bleeding profusely, was picked up and 
after his injuries had been attended to by a physi¬ 
cian was taken in a carriage to his home. 

Judge Johnson the next morning wrote an ac¬ 
count of the affair to the Cincinnati Gazette, ac¬ 
companied by a testimonial disavowing on behalf 
of the city of Richmond all responsibility for “the 
cowardly and brutal assault”, signed by more than 
fifty of the most prominent residents, including 
Timothy Nicholson, Charles F. Coffin, Lewis D. 
Stubbs, David Nordyke, Howell Grave, N. S. 
Leeds, William Bradbury and Stephen Strattan. 21 

20. Father of Henry U. Johnson, afterwards Representative in 
Congress from the Burnt District, and of Robert Underwood Johnson, 
editor The Century Magazine and later U.S. Ambassador to Italy. 

21. Cincinnati Gazette, Dec. 1, 1865. 


294 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Meredith, a close friend of Gov. Morton, who 
had appointed him Colonel of a regiment raised 
by him in eastern Indiana and had procured his 
promotion, 22 had been an unsuccessful candidate 
for the Congressional nomination against Julian 
the year before, and this fact, coupled with his 
military disgrace 23 (for which he blamed Julian) 
so wrought upon him that, as he said in his de¬ 
fense, ‘self-respect and justice to his family com¬ 
pelled him to vindicate his own reputation and 
character by a resort to force.’ 24 

The Indianapolis Journal in reporting the as¬ 
sault declared Julian to be the superior of 
Meredith physically and ‘not a man of any per¬ 
sonal courage’, 25 both of which statements were 
notoriously untrue. 26 Julian never carried tire- 
arms, but expressly stated that he believed in the 
right of self defense, adding however his convic¬ 
tion that had conditions made defense possible on 
that occasion his life would probably have been 
sacrificed. He was urged by friends to go armed 
henceforth, and even to seek personal revenge, 

22. William Dudley Foulke cites Gov. Morton’s appointment of 
Meredith as Colonel as having been bitterly criticised. Life of Morton, 
Vol. I, p. 152. 

23. This had taken place several months before and the two men 
had met many times in the interim with no intimation on Meredith’s 
part of ill-will. Julian’s Journal, Dec. 10, 1865. 

24. Indianapolis Journal, Dec. 2, 1865. 

25. Ibid. November 29, 1865. 

26. Meredith’s phenomenal size has been alluded to, and Julian at 
this time was far from robust health. The latter’s speaking tour in 
Kentucky in 1852 and his braving mob violence in Terre Haute the 
same year are two instances among a number that might be cited of 
his physical courage. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


295 


but he preferred to leave the case with public 
opinion, which almost unanimously condemned 
the assault both through the press and indigna¬ 
tion meetings in various parts of the State. 27 

The case of the State of Indiana vs. Meredith 
for assault and battery, after dragging along for 
three years was finally nol grossed, the reason 
presumably being political influences that had 
fought Julian for years and that, reinforced by 
his failing health were destined to down him. 

Julian's speech in the national Congress on 
Suffrage in the District of Columbia, 28 delivered 
six weeks later (January 16th) was a more 
scholarly and finished presentation of the subject 
treated in his Indianapolis address, and was fol¬ 
lowed two days afterwards by the passage of the 
bill extending the right of suffrage to the colored 
people of the District, 29 thus illustrating the rapid 
advance of public opinion on this subject. One 
passage from this speech is given here as indicat¬ 
ing the genuine democracy of this particular 
founder of the Republican party: 

“I know of no half-way ground in dealing with 

27. “It is possible that bludgeons and unmeasured abuse may 

prove effective in squelching George W. Julian. It is possible. There 
is no telling what hard blows, well laid on, may accomplish. It is 
probable however, that the result will be very different from that ex¬ 
pected. . . . They who bend the bow dream not of its rebound. 

If Julian is half as bad a man as his personal enemies represent him 
to be they would better effect their object by letting him severely 
alone.” Lafayette Journal, Nov. 29, 1865. 

28. Julian’s Speeches, p. 291. Cong. Globe, 39th Cong. 1st Sess. 
p. 255. 

29. Acts of Cong. 39th Cong. 2nd Sess. Ch. VI. p. 375. 


296 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

fundamental principles. To vote against this 
measure is to vote against the first truths of 
democratic liberty. It is to vote for the old spir¬ 
it of caste and the old law of hate which have so 
terribly blasted our land. It is to make a record 
which the roused spirit of liberty and progress 
and the thick-coming events of the future will cer¬ 
tainly disown and turn from with shame. And 
while such a vote might tend to placate the con¬ 
servative and the trimmer, it would offend those 
radical hosts now everywhere springing to their 
feet and preparing for battle against every form 
of inequality and injustice, and in favor of “All 
rights for all”. Sir, justice is safe. The right 
thing is the expedient thing ... I agree that 
the passage of this bill would tend to open the way 
to perfect equality before the law in all the States. 
I do not deny that the public would so understand 
it, and I decline none of the consequences of my 
vote. Mr. Jefferson, speaking of the negroes, de¬ 
clared that ‘whatever be their degree of talent, it 
is no measure of their rights’, and he likewise 
insisted that, ‘among those who either pay or fight 
for their country no line can be drawn’. That is 
my democracy. ‘The one idea,’ says Humboldt, 
‘which history exhibits as evermore developing 
itself into greater distinctness, is the idea of hu¬ 
manity, the noble endeavor to throw down all 
barriers erected between men by prejudice and 
one-sided views, and by setting aside the distinc¬ 
tions of religion, country and color, to treat the 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


297 


whole human race as one brotherhood'. Sir, on 
this broad ground, coincident with Christianity 
itself, I plant my feet; and no man can fail who 
will resolutely maintain it." 30 


30. Julian's Speeches, pp. 305-306. 


CHAPTER XII. 


Soldiers’ Bonus—Land Bill—Eight Hour Bill — 
Reconstruction—Loss of Patronage — Re¬ 
districting—Johnson Impeachment 
Trial—Land Matters—The 
Bonus Again—Woman 
Suffrage Amend¬ 
ment 

Julian’s labors in the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth 
Congresses were chiefly in connection with land 
matters, the reconstruction of the Southern 
States, the question of negro suffrage and the pro¬ 
posed impeachment of President Johnson. A sol¬ 
diers’ bonus was at that time a much discussed 
theme and petitions poured in to Congress from 
soldiers of the Civil War praying for an equaliza¬ 
tion of their bounties and that this equalization 
be made in grants of land, in conformity with the 
policy of the government in dealing with the 
veterans of previous wars. This Julian opposed 
at every step, because in the first place he was 
convinced that it would not redound to the benefit 
of the soldiers, experience having shown that 
speculators would rush forward and purchase the 
land warrants for a mere fraction of their real 
value, and secondly because such a step would 
tend to overthrow the policy of the Pre-emption 
and Homestead laws. He therefore introduced a 


(298) 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


299 


bill for the equalization of soldiers' bounties in 
money at the rate of eight and a third dollars per 
month for the service rendered. 1 His bill was 
referred to the Committee on Military Affairs, 
and reported favorably with some amendments. 
It afterwards passed the House as General 
Schenck’s Bill, but the Senate failed to agree, a 
compromise being finally effected by which an un¬ 
satisfactory bonus was coupled with an increase 
of salary for members of Congress, the last being 
the only way to secure sufficient support for the 
measure. Julian did not vote for this bill. 2 

Early in the year 1866, Julian reported a bill 
from the Committee on Public Lands providing 
for opening to Homestead settlement all the un¬ 
sold public lands in the States of Alabama, Mis¬ 
sissippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Florida, 3 
aggregating about forty-seven million acres, lands 
that would otherwise be liable to purchase in large 
tracts by speculators whenever the machinery of 
the Land Department should be restored in those 
States.. It was to avert this mischief and to se¬ 
cure these lands as homesteads for the poor of 
the South, black and white alike, that his bill was 
proposed. It passed the House by a vote of 112 
to 24, 4 and became a law after a conference com¬ 
mittee had amended it to meet the wishes of the 
Senate. 

1. Cong. Globe, Mar. 21, 1866. 39th Cong. 1st Sess. p. 1547. 

2. Ibid. July 27, 1866. p. 4288. 

3. Ibid. Feb. 7, 1866. p. 715. 

4. Ibid. Feb. 8, 1866. p. 748. 


300 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

On March 12, 1866, he introduced for the first 
time his bill providing that eight hours should 
constitute a day's work for all mechanics and la¬ 
borers employed by or on behalf of the govern¬ 
ment, 5 which was referred to the Judiciary Com¬ 
mittee. The measure was again proposed by him 
in the succeeding Congress, March 14, 1867, 6 and 
again referred as before, but was passed two 
weeks later when re-introduced by N. P. Banks, 
a Representative from Massachusetts. His va¬ 
ried activities, including the presentation of bills 
providing for increased pay for mechanics and 
laborers in the Washington Navy Yard, 7 for addi¬ 
tional bounty for soldiers, 8 and his participation 
in debate on general topics, show that his mind 
was not entirely directed along one or two lines of 
legislation, but that he was alert in regard to all 
business that came before the House. 

It is however a fact that two questions were 
uppermost with him at this period, namely, Re¬ 
construction and Impeachment. On both of these 
he had decided views. The plan of treating the 
lately seceded States as Territories appealed more 
and more strongly to Julian, and on January 28, 
1867, he addressed the House urging that this 
policy be applied to all except Tennessee, 9 whose 
reconstructed government had already been rec- 

6. Ibid. Mar. 12, 1866. p. 1831. 

6. Ibid. 40th Cong. 1st Sess. p. 105. 

7. Ibid. p. 511. 

8. Ibid. p. 784. 

9. Julian’s Speeches, p. 348. Globe, 39th Cong. 2nd Sess. Ap¬ 
pendix, p. 77. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


301 


ognized and her Representatives and Senators re¬ 
ceived in Congress. He objected emphatically to 
the proposal of Thaddeus Stevens which would 
restore the franchise to any citizen of a rebellious 
State who should swear that on and after March 
4, 1864, he had been opposed to further hostilities 
and that henceforth he would faithfully support 
the Constitution of the United States. Even as¬ 
suming the good faith of those who might take 
this oath, it seemed to Julian unwise to make 
haste to share the governing power of the country 
with those who for years had fought to overthrow 
the Union. “Is treason against the nation an of¬ 
fense so slight, an affair so trifling, that no real 
atonement shall be demanded? Sir, the citizen's 
duty of allegiance and the nation's obligation of 
protection are reciprocal. The one is the price of 
the other, and the compact is alike binding upon 
both parties. When the rebels broke this com¬ 
pact by the crime of national murder, their right 
of citizenship was forfeited, and the nation has 
the undoubted right to declare the consequences 
of that forfeiture by law. It not only has the 
right, but in my judgment is sacredly bound to 
exercise it, because in the language of Vattel, 
‘Every nation is obliged to perform the duty of 
self-preservation'. No government can be secure 
which allows its enemies a common and equal 
voice with its friends in the exercise of its pow¬ 
ers. This nation has hitherto recognized this 
principle. In the very first years of the Republic 


I 


302 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

Congress sanctioned the perpetual disfranchise¬ 
ment of the leader and principal officers of Shays' 
Rebellion; and the acts of Congress which war¬ 
rant the exercise of this power stand in full force 
and unchallenged on our statute books. . . . 

The authority of Congress in all such cases rests 
upon the universal law of nations. It grows out 
of the contract of allegiance and the duty of every 
nation to preserve its own life; and therefore no 
trial and conviction by any judicial tribunal are 
necessary as a condition of the declared for¬ 
feiture. The forfeiture is not declared as a pun¬ 
ishment for the violation of any criminal law, but 
as a safeguard against national danger. It is an 
expression of the same policy that excludes aliens 
from the rights of citizens. The power is not un¬ 
constitutional, for our fathers in framing the Con¬ 
stitution recognized the law of nations, as they 
were compelled to do in launching the Republic 
among the independent powers of the world.” 10 

He did not urge perpetual disfranchisement, 
but insisted that the time had not yet come for 
the reconstruction of the revolted districts as 
States on any terms whatever. What was wanted 
was not an easy and quick return of their for¬ 
feited rights in the Union, but a territorial status 
for a term of years. He would have Congress 
organize a “well-appointed political purgatory” 
down there and keep the Confederates in it until 
by penitence and a change of life they should prove 


10. Globe, 39th Cong. 2nd Sess. Appendix, p. 78. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


303 


that they could be trusted. He would put them on 
probation, perhaps for ten or even twenty years, 
until they were qualified for restoration or until an 
outside element had been introduced strong 
enough to modify the political and moral atmos¬ 
phere. “Let each of these Territories have a 
governor, a chief justice, a marshal and an at¬ 
torney (appointed by the President). Let each 
of them have a delegate in Congress, fitly denied 
the right to vote, while permitted to speak. Let 
each have a legislature for the enactment of local 
laws, subject to the supervision of Congress. Let 
Congress declare who shall be qualified to vote 
in these Territories, adopting the same rule 
already established in the other Territories of 
the United States and in the District of Columbia. 
And when local supremacy shall defy the national 
authorities in any of these Territories let it be 
effectually curbed by the military power of the 
United States. Under this educational process I 
would have these rebellious districts trained up 
in the way they should go, whether the time re¬ 
quired for such training shall prove long or short; 
while in the meantime every inch of their soil 
will be subject to the national authority and free¬ 
ly open to the energy and enterprise of the world. 
This policy, by nationalizing the South, would 
render life and property as secure as in Maine. 
It would tend powerfully to make our whole coun¬ 
try homogeneous. It would encourage in those 
wasted regions small farms, thrifty tillage, free 


304 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

schools, closely associated communities, social in¬ 
dependence, respect for honest labor, and equality 
of political rights. All these blessings must follow 
if only the nation, having vanquished its enemies, 
will now resolutely assert its power in the inter¬ 
est of loyal men over regions in which nothing 
but power is respected.” 11 

He took occasion in this speech to condemn once 
more the second section of the Fourteenth Amend¬ 
ment, explaining his vote therefor as simply an 
effort to reduce the political power of the rebels to 
a common level with that of loyal men and stating 
that the time had come to extend the suffrage so 
as to make it commensurate with actual repre¬ 
sentation instead of restricting representation to 
actual suffrage. 

But Congress had not been ready in 1866 and 
was not yet prepared to bestow the suffrage on 
the negro. Nor is it likely that this step would 
have been forthcoming, at least for some time, had 
the Southern States been willing to accept the 
reduction of representation which the second sec¬ 
tion of the Fourteenth Amendment provided. 
This they refused to do, and as in the case of 
the Crittenden Compromise by which President 
Lincoln and Congress proposed to make slavery 
perpetual provided the slaveholders would only 
“be good” and not disrupt the Union, it was the 
headstrong and desperate action of the South that 
precipitated the very conditions most displeasing 
to that section. 


11. Ibid. p. 79. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


305 


Manhood suffrage had recently been provided 
for in the District of Columbia and Congress had 
voted for the admission of Colorado and Nebraska 
on the fundamental condition of their acceptance 
of the same principle, a sure prophecy of what 
must follow with respect to other States. “God 
forbid”, said Julian in the speech from which 
the foregoing passages are quoted, “that we should 
impose conditions upon virgin States of the 
Northwest which have never rebelled and whose 
people today are loyal, which we will not exact 
of the rebels who have drenched their country in 
blood! Sir, we cannot trifle with a principle so 
vital or expose it to any sort of hazard. I voted 
last year against restoring Tennessee to her place 
in the Union because I feared she could not be 
trusted without a mortgage from her securing the 
ballot to her colored loyalists. I hope my fears 
may prove groundless, but I shall never regret 
my vote. ... I shall never vote to restore 
one of those rebel districts to power as a State 
except upon the condition that impartial suffrage 
without respect to race, color or former condition 
of slavery shall be the supreme law within her 
borders.” 12 

The Reconstruction measure which called forth 
the above speech was however superseded by the 
Military Bill, vetoed by President Johnson and 
passed over his veto, a measure of which Julian 
disapproved, but for which he reluctantly voted 

12. Ibid. p. 80. 


20—24142 


306 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


after the adoption of the Shellabarger amend¬ 
ment, 13 securing the ballot to the negro in the 
seceded States prior to their re-admission into the 
Union. 

Those Indiana Republicans who disliked Julian 
were of course pleased that his course in opposi¬ 
tion to President Johnson had led to the taking 
away of much of his patronage. Also they had 
the further satisfaction of securing the re-dis¬ 
tricting of the State whereby three reliably Re¬ 
publican counties with marked progressive tend¬ 
encies were subtracted from the ‘Burnt District' 
and four Democratic counties added. 14 To these 
new constituents he proceeded to address himself 
on his return from Washington, his meetings 
being large and enthusiastic, until illness overtook 
him. During the two months of physical disabil¬ 
ity following he reverted to his old habit of read¬ 
ing, enjoying among other things Buckle's History 
of Civilization. Buckle’s courage, his fidelity to 
truth, his manly defense of the brave and gifted 
men who have been hounded down by the priest¬ 
hood, his large humanity and genuine faith, his 
ambition to render service and his untimely death, 
all made an insistent appeal. 

Among biographies perused at this time was 
that of Samuel Adams by Wm. V. Wells which 
had recently made its appearance in three large 
volumes. Julian’s admiration and veneration for 

13. Globe, 39th Cong. 2nd Sess. p. 817. Political Recollections, 
p. 307. 

14. Julian’s Journal, Feb. 24, 1867. 





Julian at fifty years of age, while serving in Congress during 
the period of Reconstruction. 















GEORGE W. JULIAN 


307 


the founders of the Republic grew with the years 
and he never lost an opportunity to call the atten¬ 
tion of young persons to their exalted character 
and remarkable achievements. He thought he 
detected a certain Revolutionary cast of counte¬ 
nance, setting the leaders of that period apart 
from their fore-runners as well as from those 
who came after, and towards the close of his life 
was wont to take down the volumes of the 
National Portrait Gallery, the pages of which he 
turned with evident satisfaction. It was during 
the enforced leisure above referred to that, im¬ 
pressed with the thought that he was falling be¬ 
hind on all subjects except the special ones con¬ 
nected with legislation and politics, he recorded 
his longing for opportunity to indulge in the 
luxury, once deemed by him a necessity, of con¬ 
nected reading and study. 15 

On going to Washington for the short session 
in July 1867 Julian offered a resolution “that the 
doctrine avowed by the President of the United 
States in his message of the 15th inst. to the 
effect that the abrogation of the governments of 
the rebel States binds the nation to pay their 
debts incurred prior to the late rebellion is at war 
with the principles of international law, a delib¬ 
erate stab at the national credit, abhorrent to 
every sentiment of loyality, and well-pleasing only 
to the vanquished traitors by whose agency the 

15. “A politician’s is a dog’s life. Why do I wish to continue in 
the treadmill? Is not the better part of me becoming atrophied, I 
wonder?” Journal, June 5, 1867. 


308 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

governments of said States were overthrown and 
destroyed.” This was adopted by a vote of 100 
to 18. 16 

In August and September, in pursuance of 
party arrangements entered into at Washington, 
he held meetings throughout his district for the 
purpose of raising money for the promotion of 
education in the South. He also made a series 
of farewell speeches in the counties of Randolph, 
Delaware and Henry, strongholds of radicalism 
lost to him by the re-districting, where his public 
course received emphatic endorsement. Then in 
company with Governor Hayes of Ohio he deliv¬ 
ered eight speeches in that State before going to 
Washington to take up Congressional duties in 
November. In the Fortieth Congress he was again 
placed at the head of the Committee on Public 
Lands and was made a member of the Committee 
on Education and Labor, both of which involved 
congenial service and enabled him to further 
interests of far-reaching importance. 

When the House of Representatives, whose 
province it is to originate impeachment proceed¬ 
ings, decided by a vote of 126 to 47 to institute 
such measures against the President, Julian was 
appointed by the Speaker one of the Committee 
of seven to prepare the Articles of Impeachment. 17 
The task was completed in a very short time, so 

16. Cong. Globe, 40th Cong. 1st Sess. p. 695. 

17. This committee appointed Feb. 24, 1868, consisted of George 
S. Boutwell of Mass.; John A. Bingham of Ohio; James F. Wilson of 
Iowa, John A. Logan of Ill.; George W. Julian of Ind.; and Hamilton 
Ward of New York. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


309 


fully had the whole subject been canvassed before¬ 
hand, whereupon the case was transferred to the 
Senate. Probably no event in our history has 
created more intense feeling or called forth more 
bitter speeches than this trial, which Julian has 
described at length in his Political Recollections , 18 
and the facts in regard to which constitute a 
unique commentary on the blinding effect of par¬ 
tisan politics. In some manuscript pages which 
he left to be incorporated in a second edition of 
the above work, should such a step seem wise, 
he called the proceeding “the passionate struggle 
of a great party, accustomed to its own way and 
conscious of its power, to rid itself of a President 
on account of his refusal to execute its decrees.” 

Julian declared that there were in fact two im¬ 
peachment trials taking place at the same time. 
In the one, the President was arraigned by the 
Republican masses for political offenses of which 
the Senate could take no notice. They were try¬ 
ing him for his wrong-headed Reconstruction 
policy, for his personal abuse of Congress, for 
his sympathy with secessionists so strangely in 
contrast with his former position, and for oppos¬ 
ing in many ways and by very offensive methods 
the party that had elected and honored him. The 
wrath of the people was not kindled, Julian 
affirmed, by his violation of the Civil Tenure Act, 
which apart from its connection with the offenses 
above enumerated would never have attracted 


18. P. 311 et seq. 


310 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

their attention. But in the totally different trial 
going on in the Senate, on charges preferred by 
the House, the political misconduct of the Presi¬ 
dent was not the issue. The popular rage and 
exasperation were powerfully felt in Congress, 
it is true, and undoubtedly led to the final effort 
to impeach him. But he was there on trial for 
having violated the Civil Tenure Act in the 
removal of Secretary Stanton. It was shown that 
he believed that Act to be unconstitutional and 
that he had sought the submission of the question 
to the courts for the purpose of testing it and 
vindicating his action. Moreover, the Act, accord¬ 
ing to the authority of James Madison and Chief 
Justice Marshall, was unwarranted by the Con¬ 
stitution, while it also contravened the settled 
policy and practice of the government for nearly 
eighty years. The debate in the Senate and House 
on its passage did not justify the measure nor 
illustrate the consistency of the men who enacted 
it, and its virtual repeal within the ensuing year 
was a confession that it was a blunder and that 
the impeachment of the President, based on this 
statute, could not be defended and ought not to 
have been attempted. The seven Republican 
Senators who signalized the courage of their con¬ 
victions by voting to acquit the President, 19 and 
who were branded as political apostates and be- 

19. These were Joseph S. Fowler of Tennessee, William Pitt 
Fessenden of Maine, James W. Grimes of Iowa, John B. Henderson of 
Missouri, Edmund G. Ross of Kansas, Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, and 
Peter G. Van Winkle of West Virginia. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


311 


J 

trayers of their country and some of them 
hounded to their graves by abuse, have long been 
vindicated, while the intolerant majority whose 
reckless scheme came within one vote of its con¬ 
summation can be counted fortunate only in the 
failure of their undertaking. 

During the closing days of the Thirty-ninth 
Congress Julian had been able to defeat several 
mischievous land-grant bills, his influence in all 
such matters having been manifestly augmented 
by his previous struggles over mineral and other 
land measures. Early in 1868 he reported from 
the Public Land Committee a bill withdrawing the 
public lands from further sale except as provided 
for in the Pre-emption and Homestead laws, 20 the 
sole purpose of which laws was the settlement 
and tillage of the public domain by those in need 
of homes. The measure which he now proposed 
reserved to holders of military bounty land war¬ 
rants and agricultural and other land scrip the 
right to locate the same. It of course did not 
apply to mineral lands, which had been dealt with 
by the Act of July 26, 1866; and there were other 
necessary qualifications. In his speech on this 
bill, March 6, 1868, 21 he treated the subject of our 
land policy in a manner so engaging that even 
today one reads with interest his exposition, deal¬ 
ing as it does with the subject of large and small 
farms, the mischiefs of land speculation in the 

20. Cong. Globe, 40th Cong. 2nd Sosa. p. 371. 

21. Ibid. p. 1712. Julian’3 Speeches, p. 865. 


312 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

West and South, the unfortunate effects of the 
government’s unguarded system of land grants 
to railroads, its shameful policy as embodied in 
its treaties with the Indians, etc. A large edition 
of this speech was at once subscribed for and the 
National Republican Committee issued it as a 
campaign pamphlet for the impending presi¬ 
dential canvass. 

A little later he gave more detailed attention 
to the government’s Indian Treaty policy through 
which millions of acres were falling into the 
hands of corporations and monopolies. One of 
these treaties had just been concluded by which 
eight million acres which should have been opened . 
to settlers under the Pre-emption and Homestead 
laws were handed over to a single railroad com¬ 
pany at twenty cents an acre, the actual value of 
the land being from five to ten dollars per acre. 
He was successful in securing the condemnation 
of this treaty by the House and also in getting 
through the body a joint resolution providing 
that in any future treaty between the United 
States and any Indian tribe by which the title of 
such tribe to its land should be divested, the same 
should be conveyed directly to the United States 
and should thenceforth be subject to the authori¬ 
ty of Congress in the same manner as are all 
other public lands. 22 During the same month he 
reported a bill which likewise passed so amending 
the Homestead Law as to relieve honorably dis- 


22. Ibid. p. 3552. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


313 


charged soldiers of the late war from the payment 
of the five-dollar and ten-dollar fees required of 
other persons. 23 

Another service rendered about this time had 
to do with the soldiers' bonus, which again came 
before Congress in the shape of a Land Bounty 
bill reported from the Committee on Military 
Affairs. In the hope of checkmating this by an 
appeal to public opinion he wrote letters to the 
New York Tribune , the Chicago Republican and 
other papers, which called forth sympathetic ed¬ 
itorial comment. Julian also addressed the 
House, with the view not only of defeating the 
pending measure but of discouraging further 
attempts at such legislation. It was an embar¬ 
rassing task, performed at the hazard of being 
misunderstood by the soldiers and of playing into 
the hands of his opponents at home who welcomed 
every opportunity for a fresh attack upon him. 
But he recognized that like the land bounty bill 
of two years before this was calculated not only 
to upset the Homestead policy but to be of no real 
benefit to the soldiers, and he was therefore re¬ 
lieved when its proponents abandoned it for 
another measure which merely shortened the time 
of settlement under the Homestead Law in the 
case of soldiers. In the course of this speech he 
said: 

“I claim to be as true a friend of the soldier 
as any man in this Congress or out of it; but I 

23. Cong. Globe, 40th Cong. 2nd Sess. p. 2828. 


314 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


am likewise the friend of the millions who toil, 
whether soldiers or civilians, and can not there¬ 
fore unite with any man or set of men, for any 
purpose, in opposing the Homestead Law, either 
by open assault or the insidious policy of indirec¬ 
tion. I am quite as unwilling to aid in its over¬ 
throw now, on the pretense of giving bounties to 
soldiers, as I was five years ago on the specious 
ground of paying our national debt. Its policy 
is constantly invaded by stupendous grants to rail¬ 
road corporations, by corrupt Indian treaties 
which sweep away the rights of settlers and curse 
vast districts of country, and by the growing 
spirit of monopoly shown in multiplied forms and 
threatening the very principle of democratic 
equality in the Republic. Sir, the duty to which 
we are summoned is not that of submission or 
acquiescence, but of unflinching resistance to these 
unchristian and anti-republican tendencies of our 
times. No ephemeral advantages if they were 
attainable by an opposite course, could atone for 
the enduring mischiefs to the country which 
would certainly ensue.” 24 

24. Ibid. Appendix p. 424. 

Julian speaks in his Journal of the reception by the House of 
Representatives to the Chinese embassy headed by Anson Burlingame. 
This took place on June 9, 1868, and was most impressive. Anson 
Burlingame (with whom Julian had dined at the old Adams home in 
1850) after three terms in Congress from Massachusetts, was ap¬ 
pointed by President Lincoln, Minister to China in 1861, and in 1867 
he was named by the Chinese government Ambassador from China to 
the United States and to the great powers of Europe. During his 
stay in this country at the time mentioned Burlingame concluded an 
important treaty between the United States and China, which was 
promptly ratified by the Chinese government. The reception of this 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


315 


On December 8, 1868, Julian proposed an 
amendment to the Constitution declaring that 
“the right of suffrage in the United States shall 
be based upon citizenship, and shall be regulated 
by Congress; and all citizens of the United States 
whether native or naturalized shall enjoy this 
right equally, without any distinction or dis¬ 
crimination whatever founded on race, color or 
sex.” 25 This was read a first and second time, 
referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and 
ordered to be printed. The Fifteenth Amendment 
was then pending, and he presently decided to 
model his Sixteenth amendment after the former, 
bringing it forward in revised form early in the 
next Congress, 26 when it was read and referred 
as before. 27 

This action was taken on his own initiative and 
was the first proposition submitted to the nation¬ 
al Congress providing for woman suffrage 
throughout the United States, another illustration 
of the prophetic quality of his mind and of his 
public efforts. On the same day (March 15, 
1869) he introduced a bill “to discourage polyg- 

embassy by both Houses of Congress was modeled after that extended 
to General LaFayette and more recently to Louis Kossuth. Julian saw 
in it “not only a fine pageant but a most gratifying and significant 
fact looking to the ‘solidarity of nations’ and the triumph of liberal 
ideas.” Julian’s Journal, June 14, 1868. 

25. Globe, 40th Cong. 3rd Sess. p. 21. 

26. Globe, 41st Cong. 1st Sess. p. 72. 

27. March 15, 1869. “Since our famous Bill of Rights was given 
to the world declaring all men equal, there has been no proposition in 
its magnitude, beneficence, and far-reaching consequences so momentous 
as this.” The Revolution, April 27, 1869. The Revolution was at that 
time owned and published by Susan B. Anthony. 










316 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

amy in Utah by granting the right of suffrage to 
the women of that Territory; which was read a 
first and second time and referred to the 
Committee on Territories.” 28 

Two years later, on January 20,1871, the House 
having under consideration a bill for the better 
government of the District of Columbia, Julian 
made the following proposition: 

“I move to amend by striking out the word 
‘male’ of that section (section 6). I move this 
amendment in good faith, and I desire to have 
the yeas and nays on it. I do not wish to delay 
action on this bill by debate and will therefore 
only say a word in support of the amendment. 

“The establishment of universal male suffrage 
throughout the United States was preceded by its 
establishment in the District of Columbia and 
in the Territories. Following the same order I 
desire that the District of Columbia shall first 
enjoy the further and full extension of the dem¬ 
ocratic principle by giving the ballot to all the 
people here, irrespective of sex. I know of no 
reason why this should not be done. I believe the 
question of woman's rights necessarily involves 
the question of human rights. The famous 
maxim of our fathers that ‘taxation without rep¬ 
resentation is tyranny' applies not to one half 
only, but to the whole people. I am a democrat 
in full of all demands and I cannot therefore 

28. Globe, 41st Cong. 1st Sess. p. 77. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


317 


accept as a real democracy or even a republic a 
government 'half slave and half free’ ”. 29 

The previous question being called for, Julian 
insisted upon a yea and nay vote, which resulted 
in 55 yeas, 117 nays, 65 not voting. 30 Supporting 
Julian’s amendment were John Coburn, Godlove 
S. Orth, John P. C. Shanks and Jasper Packard 
from his own State; while Michael C. Kerr, 
William S. Holman, Daniel W. Voorhees and 
William Williams, also members of the Indiana 
delegation in the House, voted in the negative. 
This is believed to have been the very first vote 
ever taken in the lower House of Congress on the 
subject of woman’s enfranchisement, and the brief 
paragraph above was, so far as known to the 
writer, the first suffrage speech delivered in that 

House. 31 Both therefore possess an historic 

/ 

significance. 

In 1874 Julian canvassed Michigan and Iowa in 
behalf of this reform which was then before the 
people of Michigan in the shape of a proposed 
constitutional amendment. The arguments pre¬ 
sented by him in those campaigns are set forth 
in his volume of Later Speeches under the title 

29. Globe, 41st Cong. 3rd Sess. p. 646. 

30. Ibid. 

31. In The History of Woman Suffrage, by Elizabeth Cady Stan¬ 
ton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage, the statement is 
made, that “the only time the direct question of Woman Suffrage ever 
had been discussed and voted on in the U.S. Senate was in December, 
1866, on the Bill to Regulate Franchise in the District of Columbia. 
Vol. IV. p. 85. See also Woman Suffrage and Polities, by Carrie 
Chapman Catt and Nettie Rogers Shuler, (1923) pp. 46-48. 


318 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

“The Slavery Yet To Be Abolished”, where he 
moralizes on reforms in general, defines democ¬ 
racy, shows that its agency is the ballot, proves 
with clever irony that woman is a human being, 
and finally demolishes the several objections to 
giving her the right of suffrage. In reply to the 
charge that women do not desire the ballot he 
says: 

“In the first place, a very respectable minority 
does desire it, and if the argument I have made is 
sound, the question of majorities and minorities 
can have nothing whatever to do with the issue. 
It is not a problem of mathematics, but a claim 
of right, and therefore the disclaimer of it by 
ninety-nine one-hundredths of the sex could not 
affect the right of the remainder. In the next 
place, this minority includes many earnest and 
highly gifted women who have given the subject 
much thought and whose declared reasons for 
their position have been answered only by ridi¬ 
cule. On the other hand, the position of the 
majority is that of indifference rather than hos¬ 
tility, and results largely from inattention and 
lack of thought. 

“The mass of the slaves of the south were so 
accustomed to their lot that they gave no sign of 

discontent; but Frederick Douglass and scores of 

>• 

others ran away from their masters and de¬ 
nounced the whole system of oppression as an 
outrage upon humanity and a crime against God. 
The world has accepted their testimony and re- 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


319 


jected the negative evidence of the great majority, 
whose very contentedness was itself the strongest 
condemnation of their enslavement. In the third 
place, this minority is rapidly growing. A great 
cause never musters a majority in its beginning 
and does not need it. It has the truth on its side, 
and that never fails to prove all-sufficient. The 
cause of woman's enfranchisement is so woven 
into the logic of progress and the spirit of the 
age that its failure is impossible. . . . It is 

coming as the final product and ripe fruit of 
democratic institutions. It is coming in obedience 
to the law which has made the progress of soci¬ 
ety and the elevation of woman go hand in hand 
in the past. It is coming in response to the 
spirit of humanity which centuries ago swept 
away the code which gave woman in marriage 
without her consent and made her the chattel 
slave of her husband who could exercise over her 
the power of life and death; while the same spirit 
is now refining and humanizing our laws respect¬ 
ing her personal and property rights, enlarging 
the sphere of her occupations, increasing her 
wages, and promoting her higher education. Its 
enemies may throw obstacles in the way, and 
distress themselves by the childish dread of con¬ 
sequences, but they will be as powerless to defeat 
it as to stay the tides of the sea." 32 


32. Julian Later Speeches, pp. 77-78. 


CHAPTER XIII 


Election of Grant—Broken Health—Railway 
Land Grants—Retirement 

The nomination of Grant by the Republican 
National Convention of 1868, like that of Taylor 
twenty years before, was a disappointment to 
Julian and for some of the same reasons. In the 
first place, Grant like Taylor was a mere military 
hero with no experience in civil life that justified 
his elevation to such a post. Whereas Taylor had 
never cast a vote, Grant had voted in 1856 at 
least, and as he was a Democrat his vote was 
given to James Buchanan, a fact that did not 
recommend him as a Republican standard-bearer. 
Moreover, he drank too much, an especially seri¬ 
ous drawback in view of the recent example of 
President Johnson. It was urged however, plau¬ 
sibly enough, that if the Republicans did not nom¬ 
inate him the Democrats would, and as usually 
happens in such cases availability turned the 
trick. But he was the nominee of the party, and 
thus committed to its principles respecting the 
unsettled questions of Reconstruction, including 
negro suffrage. Julian early entered the can¬ 
vass, continuing on the stump until the November 
election except when the ague held him fast. His 
speech on “The Seymour Democracy and the Pub¬ 
lic Lands,” 1 delivered at Shelbyville on August 

1. Julian’s Speeches, p. 399. 


(320) 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


321 


8tK, was prepared at the request of the Repub¬ 
lican National Committee and was widely scat¬ 
tered in pamphlet form as a campaign document. 
It was a scathing arraignment of the Democrat¬ 
ic party on the question discussed, but he after¬ 
wards recorded his opinion that the violence of 
party feeling at the time prevented that fairness 
and impartiality of judgment which a cooler 
survey of the question would have prompted. 2 

Julian was returned to Congress for the fifth 
consecutive term this year, but so desperate were 
the tactics employed against him, including ballot- 
box stuffing, powerful efforts to prevent the is¬ 
suance of his certificate of election, and an unsuc¬ 
cessful contest waged by his opponent for the 
seat, that his retirement two years later was 
almost a foregone conclusion. 

His last speech in the Fortieth Congress, de¬ 
livered on February 5, 1869 3 was called forth by 
the railroad lobby which had assumed startling 
proportions, and by various schemes that were 
brought forward to relieve the financial situation, 
which as always happens after a war was serious. 
He declared that economy of expenditure and in¬ 
creased production were the two basic necessities 
and after a brief survey of the country’s natural 
resources and material development he proceeded 
to point out what appeared to him to be the duty 
of Congress at this critical juncture. In the first 

2. Unpublished Autobiography. 

3. “How to Resume Specie Payments,” Speeches, p. 415. Cong. 
Globe, 40th Cong. 3rd Sess. Appendix, p. 137. 

21—24142 


322 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

place, there ought to be an absolute inhibition on 
the further sale of arable land for speculative 
purposes:—such lands should be pledged in 
reasonable allotments to productive wealth. 

“We say to the landless poor man, 'Go upon any 
portion of the surveyed public lands, select your 
homestead, occupy and improve it, and it shall 
be yours/ But we say to the speculator, 'Go also, 
with the free license of Congress to throw your¬ 
self across the path of the struggling pioneer 
settlers by buying up great bodies of choice lands, 
forcing them beyond you into the more distant 
frontier, or compelling them to surround your 
monopoly by their improved homesteads which 
shall thus make you rich by their toil and at the 
nation’s cost/ Sir, such a policy is as financially 
stupid as it is flagrantly unjust. It has marred 
and crippled the Homestead law from the begin¬ 
ning, rendering it a measure of half-way reform 
at best. On another occasion I have shown that 
more than thirty millions of acres since the for¬ 
mation of the government have fallen into the 
grasp of monopolists and been consigned to soli¬ 
tude through the partnership which the govern¬ 
ment has formed with the speculator to cheat the 
poor man out of his right to a home and the 
country out of the productive wealth which these 
millions might have yielded under the hand of 
industry. 

“Why should Congress any longer tolerate this 
ruinous policy? The wealth which is to feed our 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


323 


commerce and enable us to pay our debt must 
be dug from the soil. No man will dispute this 
fundamental truth. Then why not dedicate the 
whole of our remaining rich lands to actual settle¬ 
ment and tillage and while thus increasing our 
wealth provide homes and independence for the 
poor? Our Puritan ancestors prior to their em¬ 
igration to Massachusetts Bay issued a paper in 
which they declared that The whole earth was 
the Lord’s garden and he had given it to the sons 
of Adam to be tilled and improved by them’. And 
they asked, ‘Why then should any stand starving 
for places of habitation, and in the meantime 
suffer whole countries, profitable for the use of 
man, to lie waste without any improvement?’ Sir, 
this question so earnestly asked by the Puritans 
nearly two hundred and fifty years ago still de¬ 
mands an answer, and in the name of the home¬ 
less and toiling poor of our land I ask it from the 
Congress of the United States. The interests 
of humanity and the development of our resources 
go hand in hand, and their joint plea cannot much 
longer be denied.” 4 

“Congress should remove another obstruction 
to progress by providing that all future grants of 
land in aid of railroads should be made on the 
condition, expressed in the act making the grants, 
that the land should be sold to actual settlers only, 
in quantities not greater than one quarter section 
and for a price not exceeding a fixed maximum. 


4. Globe, 40th Cong. 3rd Sess. Appendix, p. 138. 


324 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


“Congress,” said he, “has granted to the different 
lines of the Pacific railroads alone the estimated 
aggregate of a hundred and twenty-four million 
acres. . . . This immense domain has passed 

into the hands of corporations, and under the 
terms on which it was granted they hold it as 
a complete monopoly. They may sell it to actual 
settlers in moderate homesteads, or they may sell 
it to a single individual. They may sell it for 
a reasonable price, or fix upon it such a price as 
they please. They may sell it tomorrow, or hold 
it forty years for a rise in price through the en¬ 
hanced value to be added to it by adjacent settle¬ 
ments. Regions which the Commissioner of the 
General Land Office fitly describes as of ‘empire 
extent’, including vast bodies of the richest lands 
in the nation, are placed entirely beyond the power 
of our pioneer settlers. . . . The Northern 

Pacific railway alone has a grant forty miles wide 
extending from the head of Lake Superior to the 
Pacific Ocean and containing forty-seven million 
acres, about equal in extent to the five States of 
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massa¬ 
chusetts and New Hampshire, while the total 
grants to all our various roads and for other 
works of internal improvement are nearly equal 
to the entire area of the thirteen original States.” 5 

5. Ibid. pp. 138-139. For a discussion of the Land Grants see 
L. H. Haney, A Congressional History of Railroads, 1850-1887 (1910) ; 
F. L. Paxson, “The Pacific Railroads and the Disappearance of the 
Frontier” ; American Historical Association Annual Report, 1907. Sho- 
suke Sato, History of the Land Question in U.S. (1886), Johns Hop¬ 
kins University Studies. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


325 


In the third place, he insisted upon a reform of 
the government’s policy respecting Indian reser¬ 
vations, instancing some of the most recent 
transactions by which millions of acres which 
should have reverted to the government of the 
United States had fallen into the hands of vested 
interests. He again touched upon the subject of 
our mineral land policy, and reiterated the facts 
and arguments set forth in his speech of February 
9, 1865. 6 

In conclusion he said:—“Beyond the enforce¬ 
ment of a rigid economy, legislation can lead the 
country out of its financial troubles only by re¬ 
moving the several obstructions to national prog¬ 
ress which I have mentioned. We can abolish 
the curse of land speculation and devote the re¬ 
mainder of our public domain to actual settle¬ 
ment and productive wealth. A bill providing for 
this is now pending. We can reform our policy 
of railroad land grants, so that it shall build roads 
and at the same time populate and improve the 
country along their lines. ,We can overhaul our 
disgraceful Indian treaty system and provide by 
law that whenever the title to any of their vast 
reservations shall be extinguished they shall fall 
under the control of Congress and be dedicated 
to settlement and tillage. And finally, we can so 
reconstruct our legislation respecting mineral 
lands as more fully to develop their vast wealth 
and thus compel them to help efface the existing 


6. See page 269. 


326 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

difference between our paper currency and gold. 
These, sir, are the four channels through which 
the swelling tide of our wealth must pour in and 
save at once our national finances and our national 
honor. These are the golden gates through which 
the Republic must pass if it would crush out the 
insidious but steadily growing power of aristoc¬ 
racy and landlordism. Through the adoption of 
these practical reforms specie payments would be 
resumed just as soon as our quickened industries 
and improved condition would allow. Unpre¬ 
cedented prosperity and wealth would answer to 
the roused energies of the people and the moral 
power of equal rights guarded by equal laws.” 7 

Julian’s nervous breakdown of the early war 
period brought in its train various maladies, so 
that life was henceforth a struggle with bodily 
affliction. Among the experiments in doctoring 
hopefully entered upon, only to be abandoned in 
despair, was an astounding course of treatments 
at the hands of Dr. William A. Hammond of New 
York, formerly United States Surgeon General 
and widely famous at that time for his success 
in the cure of nervous ailments. Dr. Hammond 
first gave him forty-five grains of bromide of 
potassium three times a day, three pills daily 
composed chiefly of phosphorus, three drops of 
hemlock thrice a day, a teaspoonful of a mixture 
of quinine, strychnine and phosphoric acid, and a 
teaspoonful of codliver oil, each three times a day. 


7. Globe, 40th Cong. 3rd Sess. Appendix, p. 140. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


327 


This regimen faithfully persisted in failing either 
to cure or kill, the doctor prescribed and the 
patient took 'what in this more enlightened age 
seem alanriing doses of hydrate of chloral, then 
newly introduced into this country, along with 
equally heroic portions of bromide. 8 Dr. Ham¬ 
mond. finally confessed himself baffled and advised 
travel. But before going to New York the Julians 
had spent three months in a trip to California, 
having been among the first passengers to the 
far west over the newly completed Pacific Rail¬ 
way. The undertaking was altogether too ex¬ 
hausting for a man of his slender physical re¬ 
sources, particularly as his interest in land 
matters led to numerous side trips and conferences 
with settlers, and it is not surprising that he 
came back not at all improved in health although 
much edified by the novel sights and incidents 
of the journey. 

On giving up Dr. Hammond’s treatments he 
resorted to Turkish baths, the water cure, mas¬ 
sage, the health lift, the vacuum cure, the move¬ 
ment cure, etc. Improvement was followed by 
relapse, and relapse by improvement to the end 
of his days, reminding him as has been the case 
with multitudes of others that health is an asset 
impossible justly to gauge until it has taken 
wings. He became a patient and after a while 
a cheerful invalid, never abandoning hope, and 
finally during the last ten years of his life attained 


8. Julian’s Journal, Jan. 3, 1870. 


328 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


a degree of comparative ease. But in the narra¬ 
tion of his activities from this time on it must 
be borne in mind that he was really, a sick man 
who but for an indomitable will and a certain 
unquenchable zest for living would have drifted 
into a state of useless and fretful inertia. . 

In addition to physical ills his life was made 
particularly unhappy during the spring of ^869 
by squabbles in every part of his district for 
appointments to offices that were then considered 
as part of the spoils to be distributed by Con¬ 
gressmen. For in spite of his hostility to the 
Johnson policy, a considerable number of places; 
was still at his disposal. In Shelby and Franklin 
counties these contests became particularly un¬ 
manageable, 9 and he was so impressed with the 
impropriety and wrong of the system that he 
wrote an earnest letter to Representative Jen ekes 
of Rhode Island cordially commending his pro¬ 
posed measure providing for the reform of the 
Civil Service, the progress of which he watched 
with much interest. 10 

Pending the district primary of 1870 Julian did 
not return to Indiana, although urged by friends 
to do so. He was too ill to make a campaign for 

9. “I was obliged to give my days and nights to this wretched 
business and often received only curses for the sincerest efforts to do 
what I believed was right. ... I was tormented for months about 
the postoffice at the little town of Laurel, where the rival parties 
pounced upon one another like cannibals." Unpublished Autobiog¬ 
raph ?/. 

10. Carl Russell Fish, The Civil Service and the Patronage, p. 211. 
House Reports, 40th Cong. 2nd Sess. ii. No. 47. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


329 


the nomination, Congress was in session, and 
when not obliged to be in New York for medical 
treatment he was in his seat. Many tributes were 
paid him before and after the primary, not only 
in Indiana but in other States, for it was well 
understood that he was sore beset by foes. 
Among the most notable was that of Wendell 
Phillips in the Anti-slavery Standard: 

“Like his father-in-law Mr. Giddings, like Sum¬ 
ner and others Mr. Julian looks at politics from 
the standpoint of principle. He is among the 
few Congressmen whose careers deserve to be 
called statesmanlike. He looks ahead, is prompt 
in launching new movements on right princi¬ 
ples, . . . willing to wait till the masses rise 

to his level, but meanwhile never defers to their 
mistakes by concealing his convictions. His offi¬ 
cial life is an honor to a State which must rest 
its claim to honorable place not on a long cata¬ 
logue of great names but on the distinguished 
merit of the few really great men she has lent to 
the Union. ... As Sumner has watched 
over (negro) suffrage in the Senate, so patiently 
and vigilantly has Julian watched the land policy 
in the House. The Union needs him. The negro 
needs him. The welfare, prompt pacification and 
prosperity of the South need him. Men who 
understand the present issues best and appreciate 
our present risks, justly feel safer while this pilot 
stays at the helm.” 11 


11. March 12, 1870. 


330 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

These words of Phillips were echoed by other 
papers, and the following from an editorial in 
the Chicago Republican is a specimen of many 
that appeared at this time: 

“A persistent attempt is being made in certain 
quarters to prevent the renomination and re- 
election of Mr. Julian in the Fourth Congression¬ 
al district of Indiana which he now represents 
with such signal ability, faithfulness and vigor. 
The opposition to returning him to the seat where 
he has so long battled for the rights of the masses, 
especially for the rights of the frontier settler 
on national lands, arises from the very fact of 
such meritorious service. . . .We speak 

knowingly, with a full appreciation of the force 
of our allegation, when we aver that the Pre¬ 
emption and Homestead policy never more than 
now stood in need of advocates upon the floors of 
Congress or was in more imminent peril. The 
land lobby in Washington was never so formidable 
and confident, and the removal of a few obstacles 
in its way would give the public domain entirely 
into the hands of monopolists and speculators. 
Conspicuous among these obstacles is to be found 
Mr. Julian. This fact fully accounts for the op¬ 
position that has been organized against him not 
only in his district but outside of it. . . . We 
hope all efforts to displace Mr. Julian will signal¬ 
ly fail. Failure to return him to the seat he 
occupies with so much positive and immediate 
advantage to the country at large may be char- 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


331 


acterized without an atom of exaggeration as a 
national loss.” 12 

Soon after the news of Julian’s defeat at the 
primary became known, the Civil Service Journal, 
published at Washington, declared editorially: 

“There is not a homestead settler anywhere 
upon our public domain, from the boundaries of 
Oregon to New Mexico, who does not feel that the 
defeat of Mr. Julian is a great misfortune to the 
country, for if Mr. Julian was not the father of 
the Homestead policy he was at least one of its 
early, earnest and persistent advocates, and he 
has maintained it with a courage and fidelity 
which none can realize so well as those who have 
resided at the national capital for the past ten 
years and have personally seen the persistent at¬ 
tempts to alienate the public domain and to 
consecrate it to the uses of capital instead of 
labor. . . . Mr. Julian is no ordinary man, 

possessing as he does that iron individuality of 
soul that dares to differ from friends as well as 
foes.” 13 

Although not opposing Julian publicly, Horace 
Greeley did not desire his return to Congress, 
and wrote him to this effect, a characteristically 
frank letter dated New York, March 7, 1870, 
giving the following reasons: 

“1. Nearly every old-fashioned long-time Ab¬ 
olitionist whom I know has long since evinced a 


12. Julian Scrap-book. Date lacking. 

13. Scrap-book. Date lacking. 


332 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


kindly, generous, magnanimous disposition toward 
the beaten, broken-down Rebels. I have seen no 
evidence of that spirit on your part. I do not so 
much object to this because it is illiberal as be¬ 
cause I deem it profoundly unwise. 

“2. You are hostile to the protection of Home 
Industry. Of course you are honestly so, and 
have the same right to your opinion as I have to 
mine. I am not your opponent on that account; 
but I have a joyful hope that after the next elec¬ 
tion in your State there will be at least one Pro¬ 
tectionist in your delegation. Of course I under¬ 
stand he will have to be a new member.” 14 

This made not the slighest difference in the 
friendship and the pleasant relations between him 
and Greeley, as letters testify, and the latter had 
no more valiant supporter during his trying cam¬ 
paign for the Presidency two years later than the 
Hoosier whom he regarded as too unrelenting 
towards the “beaten, broken-down Rebels.” 

Julian accepted the verdict of the primary elec¬ 
tion 15 in a philosophic spirit, writing a manly 

14. Julian Letters. 

15. An interesting description of the primary elections held in 
Julian’s Congressional District years before Indiana or any other state 
had enacted laws regulating primaries as we know them today, is men¬ 
tioned in the correspondence of Henry U. Johnson of Richmond, who 
was a member of Congress from 1891 to 1899. He says: “While he 
(Julian) was in Congress the Republican candidates were nominated 
throughout the entire Congressional District by the votes of Repub¬ 
licans cast at the polls. Polls were opened and judges and clerks wex - e 
appointed and tickets were printed with the names of the candidates 
for the nomination for the various offices thereon. The voters scratched 
the candidates they did not favor and deposited the ballots in the bal¬ 
lot box. The judges and clerks counted and tabulated the votes at 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


333 


letter which was read at the district convention 
the following week in which he expressed himself 
as entirely satisfied with the result. He declared 
that he had consented to seek the nomination only 
after considerable hesitation, owing to his poor 
health, and because he believed his connection 
with some important public questions would 
enable him to render real and needed service to 
the country within the next few years. He 
pointed out that the canvass had been a remark¬ 
able one. “I have been fought with as much bit¬ 
terness and rancor as if I had betrayed the coun¬ 
try to its enemies or made myself infamous by 
the foulest of crimes. And all this has been done 
just as the great and enduring principles have 
triumphed for which I have battled through good 
report and through evil report for a quarter of 
a century. I mention this as a remarkably sug¬ 
gestive fact, and not in the way of complaint; for 
having voluntarily accepted political life I could 
not hope to escape its disagreeable incidents. 

“But I do not wish to dwell upon these topics. 

night when the polls were closed, and the result was by them com¬ 
municated to the county central committee. Subsequently, I think, a 
Congressional convention met at some place in the Congressional Dis¬ 
trict and the delegates thereto from the various counties cast their 
votes for the candidates who had carried their respective counties. Per¬ 
haps the convention was at times dispensed with. I don’t remember as 
to this. All the machinery was voluntary, there being in those days 
no law for the holding of primary elections as there has been of late 
years. None but Republicans had anything to do with the primaries ; 
none but Republicans were eligible to vote. No county conventions 
were held to nominate county officers after the holding of the pri¬ 
maries. The vote as announced by the judges and clerks of the elec¬ 
tions was accepted as final for such affairs.” 


334 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

It will be well for all parties and for the success 
of our cause to pass them by. If it be possible 
let us now have harmony. ... To the many 
friends who have stood by me in this canvass with 
such singular constancy, faithfulness and self- 
sacrificing zeal I take occasion to return my most 
sincere and heart-felt thanks; and I desire 
through you [the chairman of the convention, to 
whom the letter was addressed] to withdraw from 
any further connection with the Congressional 
contest, and thus relieve the convention of Tues¬ 
day next from any further trouble or responsibil¬ 
ity on my account.” 16 

Perhaps no Congressional district in the United 
States was ever the scene of so much labor by an 
individual as was the ‘Burnt District’ during the 
decade from 1860 to 1870. During this period 
and throughout his career Julian had to encounter 
the opposition of the politicians, the men who are 
accustomed to issue orders and to see them 
obeyed. And although he was all the while mak¬ 
ing fresh converts and was sustained by troops of 
loyal friends, he was ‘obliged to stand alone as the 
champion of his cause in debate’. 17 He had very 
early given his allegiance to principles far in ad¬ 
vance of the prevailing trend of opinion, and so 
successful had been his missionary efforts that his 
district had come to be looked upon as a strong¬ 
hold of progressive thought on all public ques¬ 
tions. He had entered public life as the foe of 

16. April 6, 1870—Julian Letters. 

17. Political Recollections, p. 321. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


335 


African slavery, and slavery had perished. But 
he had not fought it as if it were the only evil 
to be overcome. Devotion to humanity was the 
basis of the anti-slavery enterprise, and he re¬ 
garded the emancipation of the negro from his 
chains as simply the prelude to a more compre¬ 
hensive movement looking to the redemption of all 
races from all forms of bondage. He believed in 
the rights of man, whether trampled upon by 
slave drivers, unenlightened sex prejudice, land 
monopoly, the “legalized robbery of a protective 
tariff, or the power of concentrated capital in al¬ 
liance with labor-saving machinery.” As his re¬ 
flections at the close of his first Congressional 
term in 1851 were made up of mingled satisfac¬ 
tion and regret, so now he looked back over his 
long service with mixed emotions. That his 
thoughts were on the whole serene and comfort¬ 
ing was inevitable, for he had put into his work 
conscience and the best of which he was 
capable. 

After a summer and autumn spent chiefly in 
doctoring in New York, during which he did a 
vast amount of reading (for mental relaxation 
had become an impossibility) he plunged into the 
duties of his last Congressional session, giving at¬ 
tention almost exclusively to land matters. His 
speech on “The Overshadowing Question” on 
January 21, 1871, dealt with the government's 
land policy more exhaustively than heretofore. 18 


18. Speeches, p. 432. Cong. Globe, 41st Cong. 3rd Sess. p. 648.' 


336 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

A large edition was at once printed and a second 
edition of a hundred thousand copies was issued 
by the New York Land Reform League. After 
persistent efforts he secured a vote on his bill to 
prevent the further sale of public lands except to 
actual settlers, and although the result was 109 
yeas to 69 nays, less than the required two-thirds, 
he nevertheless regarded it as a triumph, because 
it showed so tremendous a change in the temper 
of the House on this subject since his first agita¬ 
tion of the question twenty years before. He also 
noted with satisfaction the failure of the pile of 
land-grant bills on the Speaker’s table, the South¬ 
ern Pacific bill being the only one that became a 
law, and by methods so questionable as clearly to 
indicate the end of the shameful policy. 

His views on this particular bill were convinc¬ 
ingly set forth in his last speech in Congress, de¬ 
livered February 21, 1871, on “The Railway 
Power”, 19 which constitutes a fitting finale to his 
service in that body and contains more than one 
warning that if heeded, might have averted evils 
which have since borne bitter fruit. His first 
Congressional speech in 1850 had been a bold ar¬ 
raignment of the slave power, and now after the 
lapse of twenty-one years he as vigorously 
attacked a new enemy of democratic government 
that threatened consequences quite as deadly and 
even more difficult of control. 

After pointing out the extravagant character 


19. Speeches, p. 456. Globe, 41st Cong. 3rd Sess. Appendix p. 193. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


337 


of the bill and the high-handed methods already 
practiced in its behalf, such as moving the pre¬ 
vious question and thus cutting off debate, and re¬ 
fusing him as chairman of the Committee on 
Public Lands the privilege of stating an objection 
or even of asking a question, he said: 

“Mr. Speaker, I beg not to be misunderstood. 
As I have already said, this Southern Pacific road 
should be built. From the first I have looked up¬ 
on the enterprise with favor and have earnestly 
hoped that a bill providing for it might be so 
well considered and so carefully framed as to 
command the support of those who regard the set¬ 
tlement and improvement of the public lands as 
not less important than commercial facilities. 
Nor do I cherish any hostility to railroads gen¬ 
erally. Both by speech and by vote I have borne 
testimony to the contrary during my service in 
this body. It has been well said that in this coun¬ 
try railways create the towns which they connect, 
and carry civilization and all the appliances of 
civilized life with them. Undoubtedly they help 
develop the country; but the development theory 
may be carried too far and too fast. It is one 
thing to establish great lines of inter-communica¬ 
tion, foster great commercial enterprises, amass 
great wealth in the hands of the few, and show 
the world the spectacle of a magnificent govern¬ 
ment founded on the aristocracy of wealth. It is 
quite another thing, while looking to the healthy 
development of our commerce and the activity of 


i 


22—24142 


338 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

capital, to so shape the administration of affairs 
as to preserve in their full vigor the principles of 
democratic government and the republican virtue 
of the people. . . . 

“The question presented by the railway power 
of the United States is the question of commercial 
feudalism. It is the question of democracy on the 
one hand and aristocracy on the other, meeting 
in deadly conflict for the mastery. It is the ques¬ 
tion whether we shall have a government resting 
upon the policy of small farms, compact commu¬ 
nities, free schools and equality of rights, or a 
government owned and dominated by great cor¬ 
porations which never die, which band themselves 
together as a unit against the rights of the people, 
and will accept nothing short of imperial power 
over Congress, State Legislatures and the courts. 
The railway as one of the great forces of Amer¬ 
ican politics is new; but in this age of marvellous 
activities and commercial greed it already repre¬ 
sents a larger moneyed interest than that through 
which 300,000 slaveholders so long and so ab¬ 
solutely governed the country. 

“Sir, I ask gentlemen to take these startling 
facts home to themselves and to lay them to heart 
in season. I ask them to consider whether our 
hot-bed policy of building up towns and great 
cities, of amassing vast private fortunes and fos¬ 
tering luxurious and extravagant living, is not 
eating out the virtue of the people and sapping 
the veiy life of our institutions? Democracy can 
only grow and thrive in the sun and air of equal 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


339 


laws and equal opportunities. It gathers its vi¬ 
tality from the conditions which surround it. It 
must breathe the atmosphere of the whole people 
and renew its life in the fertilizing dews of their 
common humanity. It needs to be cherished and 
strengthened by ceaseless discipline and care, like 
the life of the body, and must wither and die un¬ 
der the shadow of aristocracy and privilege in 
whatever form. 

“In theory ours is a government of the people; 
but in practice it is rapidly degenerating into an 
oligarchy of grasping capitalists wielding their 
power through constantly multiplying corpora¬ 
tions. Since the formation of the government we 
have sold in all only 160 million acres of the pub¬ 
lic domain, a large proportion of which was 
bought by non-resident owners for speculative 
purposes and is today held back from settlement; 
but we have allowed 200 million acres to fall into 
the grasp of corporations whose feudalization of 
land and labor I have indicated, while bills are on 
the Speaker’s table calling for the additional 
quantity of at least 100 million acres. Can any 
thinking man face these facts and feel that the 
Republic is safe? 

“Can a government be free whose citizens are 
made landless by its systematic policy? Can a 
republic still in the days of its youth be honestly 
lauded in which the relative number of its land 
owners is constantly decreasing while the ob¬ 
stacles to the acquisition of homes are constantly 
multiplied ? Let it be remembered also that while 


340 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

these millions of acres are being surrendered to 
corporate wealth and still other millions are pass¬ 
ing into the hands of monopolists under the name 
of military bounties, college scrip, swamp land 
grants and Indian treaties, Congress persistently 
refuses to legislate for the workingman and the 
pioneer. A bill to prevent the further sale of the 
whole of our public domain which is fit for tillage 
except to actual settlers under the Pre-emption 
and Homestead laws would prove a more benef¬ 
icent and far-reaching measure than even the 
Homestead law itself. It would simply carry out 
the avowed policy of the administration and make 
it impregnable. It would, I am sure, be wel¬ 
comed by ninety-nine one-hundredths of the peo¬ 
ple of the United States and condemned only by 
those who believe in the gospel of plunder and 
spoliation. I challenge any man of any party to 
give me a single reason why Congress should not 
pass such an act at once. I challenge any man to 
account for the repeated votes in this body 
against this proposition without reference to the 
special interests to which I have referred, and 
whose will has uniformly taken the shape of law. 
For years I have striven for it in this House and 
with increasing earnestness as I have seen the 
public domain melting under the shamelessly 
prodigal policy of the government. The measure 
was voted down at the last session on the yeas and 
nays by a large majority, as it had been before, 
and I fear I shall not be able to try the question 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


341 


again at this session. We carried it as a measure 
applicable to a few States and Territories in July 
last, at the instance of their representatives, but 
our bill sleeps in the Senate Committee on Public 
Lands, and will know no waking, because it would 
inaugurate a policy threatening the profits which 
organized capital hopes to realize through still 
further raids on the public lands. Let the people 
note the fact, and let their watchword henceforth 
be the emancipation of the public domain and the 
emancipation of themselves from this cruel and 
unnatural bondage.” 20 

On returning to New York for further medical 
treatment after the adjournment of Congress 
Julian saw a good deal of Horace Greeley, and he 
particularly enjoyed Greeley’s denunciations of 
President Grant and the San Domingo swindle. 
It was during the session just closed that the 
project of annexing this island took shape, Sum¬ 
ner being displaced from the chairmanship of the 
Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs for oppos¬ 
ing the same and Cameron being installed in his 
place. Julian’s retirement to private life was 
thus coincident with the first definite lapse of the 
Republican party from the proud position which 
its early espousal of anti-slavery principles and 
its successful prosecution of the war for the 
Union had gained for it. 

During the summer (1871) he read the proof of 
his forthcoming volume of Speeches 21 for which 


20. Globe, 41st Cong. 3rd Sess. Appendix, pp. 193-194. 

21. Speeches on Political Questions, Hurd & Houghton, 1871. 


342 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

Lydia Maria Child wrote the Introduction. When 
he had asked of her this favor Mrs. Child replied: 

“I think there is no other man for whom I 
would perform the service; but I feel a debt of 
gratitude to you first as a citizen of the United 
States because you have done so much to guard 
the honor and permanence of this Republic; and 
secondly because you have so promptly and 
heartily advocated the civil rights of that ex¬ 
cluded half of the people to which I belong. 
Therefore I will do the best I can to comply with 
your request; if it meets your wants you may use 
it; otherwise you may feel free to set it aside.” 22 
And the following month she wrote: “I send you 
an Introduction to your volume which I hope will 
prove satisfactory. It has at least the merit of 
being sincere. I wrote it con a more from a heart 
full of gratitude for the public service you have 
rendered. If I have made any mistakes in dates, 
or misunderstood your position at any time, you 
can alter it by the erasure or addition of words ; 
but where my name is appended to an article I 
do not like to have any other than very slight and 
absolutely necessary alterations. 

“I beg you will not speak of any compensation. 
I am sufficiently paid by what you are doing for 
the cause of woman. Besides, I consider that I 
am not conferring a favor on you, but am ren¬ 
dering some service to the cause of freedom in my 
small way.” 23 

22. Julian Letters, June 20, 1871. 

23. Ibid. July 12, 1871. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


343 


Rarely has a volume been more graciously in¬ 
troduced, and the man whose personality and 
work could call forth so fine a tribute from such 
a woman might well feel a peculiar satisfaction. 24 

In July of this year, Julian was invited by the 
Republican State Central Committee of California 
to canvass that State on his own terms, but he 
was not physically equal to the effort, and be¬ 
sides, he knew the Republican politicians out 
there too well to be willing to undertake their de¬ 
fense. Moreover, the administration of Grant 
was daily becoming more odious, and he began to 
look forward, as valiant and trusting souls have 
done before and since, to a reconstruction of par¬ 
ties as a political necessity, spending considerable 
time in cogitations along this line. He was de¬ 
vouring books, history, philosophy, biography, 
among other things the Journal of John Woolman, 
edited by Whittier, just issued from the press, 
which so appealed to him that he wrote Whittier 
thanking him for the service thus rendered. The 
poet's reply, in which he suggested the propriety 
of Julian’s giving his impressions of the volume 
through the press, led to a notice which first ap¬ 
peared in the Radical , was copied in other papers, 
and proved to be the forerunner of many book re¬ 
views in after years. 

An editorial prepared about this time for the 
Radical entitled “Wanted, Another New De¬ 
parture”, 25 attracted a good deal of attention and 

24. Mrs. Child’s Introduction appears in Julian’s volume, Speeches 
on Political Questions, pp. 5-17. 

25. The Radical, Nov. 30, 1871. 


344 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

deserves mention because it was in a sense 
prophetic of his later political course. Vallandig- 
ham of Ohio, a former Democratic Congressman 
and the candidate of his party for governor in 
1863, who was tried, convicted and imprisoned 
for disloyal utterances during the war, had re¬ 
cently proposed a new Democratic departure, 
involving the acquiescence of his party in the 
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. This 
was followed by a similar proposition from the 
Missouri Republican. Julian now proposed a new 
Republican departure and set forth the partic¬ 
ular questions as to which this had become neces¬ 
sary. One of these was the tariff policy, which 
was steadily fostering inequalities and imposing 
heavy burdens on the mass of the people for the 
benefit of the few. He insisted that his party 
needed a new departure on the question of Civil 
Service reform, which it should initiate by a dec¬ 
laration of the one-term principle for the presi¬ 
dency, making it a plank in the next national 
platform. The party was morally bound to re¬ 
buke the scandalous performances of General 
Grant in using the vast power and patronage of 
his high office to secure his re-election. Of 
course, Julian demanded a new Republican 
departure as to the nation’s land policy, or 
rather, the carrying to a legitimate conclu¬ 
sion of the party’s promise when it wrote 
upon its banners 'Land for the Landless’. Under 
the steadily growing pressure of public opinion it 
had passed the Homestead Law of 1862, for which 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


345 


/ 

J 

he #>ave it credit with necessary qualifications. 
Th^e Homestead Act, he again insisted, was but a 
h.alf-way measure, for while it offered a home to 
the pioneer it did aot prevent the monopolist from 
buying up large tracts and thus counteracting to 
a great extent its beneficent intent. 

The remedy for this was simple, but the party 
had again and again voted down such proposed 
legislation. He urged a new departure respect¬ 
ing the labor question. Chattel slavery had been 
abolished, not however as a voluntary act under 
a sense of duty to the slave, but only on compul¬ 
sion. The domination of capital over labor still re¬ 
mained co be dealt with, and the party had yet to 
prove its genuine desire and its capacity for lead¬ 
ership in this great crusade. Consistency de¬ 
manded that it declare itself in favor of the 
enfranchisement of women. Although ‘taxation 
vuthout representation is tyranny’ is a funda¬ 
mental political axiom, one-half the citizens of the 
country were taxed and governed with no voice in 
the governing power. An aristocracy founded on 
sex was quite as pernicious as an aristocracy 
founded on color or race. 

He did not propose the abandonment or disrup¬ 
tion of the Republican party, nor did he then de¬ 
sire it. As an organization already in the field, 
with an honorable record, he hoped it might con¬ 
tinue in control of the government, but only on 
condition of a decided reconstruction of its ideals 
and policy. 



Julian in the Campaign of 1872 — Rockville Speech 
—Removal to Irvington—Campaign of 
1876 —‘‘ The Louisu na R e- 
turning BoardT 

Early in the year 1872 * Julian was urged by 
Republican friends in Indiana to seek a nomina- 

• 

tion for Congressman-at-large. On going to 
Washington in February to look after the inter¬ 
ests of some western settlers, old friends there 
added their persuasions in the same direction. He 
says in Political Recollections 1 that he T?ally 
wanted the compliment of the nomination’ which 
would undoubtedly have come to him if he had 
consented to allow the use of his name. But h3 
knew that this would imply his willingness to sup¬ 
port Grant for a second term, and this he could 
not do. There is no denying that he had become 
wedded to Congressional life and that he missed 
the accustomed excitement incident thereto. 
Moreover, he probably still entertained what he 
called ‘the besetting notion of his public useful- ‘ 
ness’, 2 and his health seemed to be improving at 
this time. But after looking at the situation from 
all sides and becoming convinced that the nomi¬ 
nation of Grant was inevitable, he sent a telegram 

1. p. 334. \ 

2. Julian’s Journal, May 5, 1869. j 


( 346 ) 



GEORGE W. JULIAN 


347 


from Washington the night before the Republican 
State convention stating that under no circum¬ 
stances could he be considered as a candidate. 
While at the National Capital he had several con¬ 
ferences with Senators Sumner, Trumbull and 
Schurz in regard to the general political situation 
and the particular crisis which loomed with grow¬ 
ing significance on the horizon. 

The Liberal Republican movement of 1872, like 
the Liberty and Free Soil demonstrations which 
preceded it and the revolt of the Gold Standard 
Democrats in 1896, was an expression of the 
keenest dissatisfaction with existing conditions 
and of willingness to throw off party trammels 
and to form alliances hitherto undreamed of for 
the sake of principle. Nothing in the history of 
parties is more reassuring than such examples 
of devotion and courage which establish a kin¬ 
ship with the great moral and spiritual rebels of 
all time and thus tend to keep alive faith in dem¬ 
ocratic government. For if the corruption that 
openly flourished under Grant had gone unrebuked 
or had failed to arouse a powerful and organized 
public opposition it must have augured ill for the 
future of our country and its system of govern¬ 
ment. Whether the enterprise should succeed or 
fail in its immediate object was of far less 

» 

moment than that it should be undertaken. 

The thought of another break with his party 
was painful to Julian. There was a great deal 
of sentiment in his nature, and he loved the ap- 


348 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


probation of friends. The memory of his exper¬ 
ience twenty-four years earlier when he severed 
his relations with the Whigs was still fresh; but 
he had been a young man then and could have 
felt no such attachment to that party as he now 
entertained for the Republican party which he 
had helped to organize and with which his po¬ 
litical career had been closely identified ever 
since. The battles he had fought in this great 
organization were for the eternal principles of 
justice and human liberty, and the memory of that 
record would remain. While he had not always 
been in sympathy with all the policies of the party, 
he recognized that it had steadily faced in the 
right direction. But for the aims and methods 
of the men now in control of national affairs he 
could have no sympathy nor any toleration. 

Accordingly, having fully committed himself to 
the new movement in a letter to the Liberal Re¬ 
publican meeting in Richmond on April 10, 1872, 
which he was not able to attend, he went to the 
convention in Cincinnati on May 1st with mingled 
trepidation and hope. He strongly desired the 
nomination of Charles Francis Adams, and exert¬ 
ed every possible effort to that end, and he always 
believed that had Adams headed the ticket success 
would have been assured. 3 

3. “The nomination of Adams was almost accomplished, and was 
only prevented by the blunder of the Trumbull men in holding on to 
the latter too long, and by the tactics of Governor Brown (B. Gratz) 
and Frank Blair. I was woefully disappointed by the defeat of 
Adams.” Julian’s Journal, May 7, 1872. See also Political Recollec¬ 
tions, pp. 339-340. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


349 


Julian presided over the convention during por¬ 
tions of two days. He was surprised when, his 
own State delegation having given him a solid 
complimentary vote for Vice-President, several 
other States fell in, running his vote up to 182 on 
the second ballot, although he was not a candidate 
and no effort was put forth in his behalf. It 
was simply a spontaneous expression of apprecia¬ 
tion and regard, and correspondingly gratifying. 
The spirit and tone of the convention were admi¬ 
rable, the only really discordant note being the 
failure to rise to the occasion when Miss Anthony 
and Mrs. Gordon presented their suffrage plea. 4 
The platform pledged the new party to the Union, 
opposition to the re-opening of any question 
settled by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fif¬ 
teenth amendments to the Federal Constitution, 
immediate removal of all political disabilities, local 
self-government with impartial suffrage, civil 
service reform, and modest government revenue. 

An instance of the sudden and unexpected way 
in which moves on the political chess-board are 
sometimes made is the fact that at the Demo¬ 
cratic State convention the following month in 
Indianapolis, Julian was offered the nomination 
for Congressman-at-Large, which however he 
promptly declined. He had gone over to attend a 
meeting of the Liberal Republican State Central 

4. “It was all wrong,—the temper of the gathering towards 
women. ... It reminded me of the popular feeling years ago 
respecting Abolitionism, and shows what a world of prejudice must 
be conquered before woman is enfranchised.” Journal, May 7, 1872. 


350 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

committee on June 10th, and whether his presence 
in the city suggested the action or it was pre¬ 
meditated is not known. “I could scarcely believe 
my eyes and ears, and no man could fail to see 
that we have entered upon a great political and 
party revolution. Every indication now points 
clearly to the endorsement of Greeley at Baltimore 
and his election in November.” 5 

The necessary fraternization with Democrats 
was naturally a little dreaded by him, but it seems 
not to have proved so awkward as might have 
been the case had he been less in earnest in behalf 
of the new enterprise or had he been obliged to 
enroll in the Democratic party instead of becom¬ 
ing a part of the Liberal Republican movement. 
And the fact that so many of his old party friends 
and associates, such as Sumner, Trumbull, Adams, 
and Chase were likewise committed to the new 
venture, also went far to smooth the way. 

The Democratic national convention which met 
in Baltimore on July 9, 1872, accepted both the 
platform and the nominees of the Liberal Repub¬ 
licans, and three days later the Greeley campaign 
in Indiana was formally opened by a speech from 
Julian at the Academy of Music, Indianapolis, to 
an audience of more than three thousand. 6 The 
speech appeared in full in many of the leading 
newspapers of the country, had a wide circulation 
in pamphlet form, and was credited with wielding 
a decided influence among men of all parties. It 


5. Julian’s Journal, June 15, 1872. 

6. Julian, Later Speeches, p. 1. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


351 


was addressed chiefly to Republican friends, and 
he sought to answer some of their objections to 
co-operating with the Democrats. This part of 
the speech is characterized by that humor which 
he knew so well how to employ and by a certain 
picturesque style that marked almost all his 
efforts. Referring to the slowness of the Repub¬ 
lican party to declare against slavery in the late 
war he said: “When the nation was finally in 
danger of perishing in the Red Sea into which 
slavery had plunged it, and we could neither save 
the country nor ourselves without clutching at 
black ropes, the Republican party became an Anti¬ 
slavery party.” He was here answering the 
charge that the Democrats were supporting 
Greeley and the Cincinnati platform from compul¬ 
sion, because they had no other recourse. 

Julian insisted that this argument was a two- 
edged sword, cutting the Republicans quite as 
severely as it cut the Democrats. But neither 
should shrink from its application. “The truth is, 
men often adopt a course of action from compul¬ 
sion, and afterwards espouse it from conviction 
and maintain it with enthusiasm. I have already 
referred to the reluctance with which our old 
Whig friends joined the Republican party, but 
when they finally did so, and repudiated their 
servility to slavery, they gave their whole hearts 
to the cause they had so bitterly opposed. . . . 

I have referred to the anxious desire of the Re¬ 
publican party to spare slavery; but does any 
man doubt that after it had made up its mind to 


352 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

destroy it, Republicans gradually became con¬ 
vinced of the righteousness of the policy? . . . 
There is often a measure of selfishness in the most 
praiseworthy acts of men, while enlightened self¬ 
ishness is not inconsistent with justice and the 
public good. And let me remind you, my old 
Republican friends who are so unforgiving toward 
Democrats, that you yourselves have some cause 
to judge them with charity. Our bloody war with 
the South was the child of slavery, and you had 
your share of guilty complicity with it. For long 
years you abetted its monstrous pretensions by 
your political action. You denounced and opposed 
all opposition to it. You did everything in your 
power to make the slavery of the South our slav¬ 
ery. We have all done our part in pampering the 
institution into madness and tempting it to its 
evil deeds. Gerrit Smith used to say that we 
ought to pay for the slaves of the South on the 
principle of ‘honor among thieves’. And can you 
remember your political partnership with the 
rebels of the South whom you now denounce, and 
the Democrats whom you distrust, and tell them 
they are incapable of repentance while wrapping 
yourselves in the robes of self-righteousness?” 7 

But the most admirable part of this speech was 
the defense of Greeley against the bitter and cruel 
assaults of the followers of Grant. Here he was 
at his best, for his soul was in the cause he argued. 
No levity was discernible in this portion of the 

7. Ibid. pp. 11-12. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


353 


address, but a deep seriousness and tone of judi¬ 
cial fairness creditable alike to the speaker and 
his theme. 

In this speech Julian retracted nothing that 
he had said in former years, but he insisted that 
we were facing a new era and that the question 
was: Should we at last become one people instead 
of two? 

“Shall the nation, purged of the guilt of slavery 
and purified by trial, employ its time in crimina¬ 
tion and recrimination over questions that need 
nothing but forgetfulness? This is the question 
for the country to ponder today. It is always 
easy to pursue a wrong course. It is easy to yield 
to passion and revenge. It is easy to resurrect 
passions and resentments after they have been 
buried. It is easy to remind others of their 
faults and thus hinder the tendency toward fra¬ 
ternity and good-will. It is easy for Republican 
politicians to repeat and reiterate their old war 
speeches, as it would be easy for me to repeat 
mine, which I would do if you could set back the 
clock of our history and place me where I stood 
when I spoke. God forbid that I should utter a 
word or breathe a whisper that could hinder the 
approach of peace and brotherhood between the 
people of the North and the people of the South 
when I see the way opening for its advent. Let 
by-gones be by-gones and the dead past bury its 
dead.” 8 

8. Ibid. p. 26. 


23—24142 


354 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


He spoke ninety-four times during the canvass, 
to large audiences which so inspired him that 
even when scarcely able to stand at the opening 
of the meeting the sight of the faces before him 
and the contagion of the occasion frequently 
enabled him to continue for more than two hours, 
after which he was obliged to seek his bed. To 
offset the ovations accorded him in many places, 
he encountered in other quarters torrents of per¬ 
sonal abuse and defamation equalling the bitter¬ 
est experiences of Free Soil days. At one of his 
meetings a group of colored men appeared armed 
with revolvers. The incident was not surprising, 
inasmuch as Morton and others had been warn¬ 
ing the people that Greeley and his followers were 
seeking to re-enslave the negro and saddle upon 
the country the rebel debt; but violence was 
averted through the intervention of white Repub¬ 
licans who likewise succeeded in preventing the 
proposed use of a large supply of bad eggs in 
another village, long known as the Wayne County 
headquarters of Abolitionism. The Democrats 
received scant attention from the Republicans in 
this campaign, party fury venting itself on the 
Liberal Republicans almost exclusively. Julian 
was branded as a sore-head, a renegade, an 
apostate and a rebel,—terms once familiar to 
him; and private letters of his so garbled and 
mutilated as to place him in an utterly false posi¬ 
tion, were distributed all over the State, along 
with the most outrageous lies that he had ever 
encountered. He defended himself of course, 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


355 


“generally compelling the enemy to retire in dis¬ 
order”, 9 but a little later he recorded that “no 
ordeal could well be more dreadful to men of 
sensitive nerves than that through which the lead¬ 
ing Greeley Republicans have had to pass this 
year.” 10 

Besides his Indiana speeches he made a brief 
campaign in Kansas were he had the largest and 
most enthusiastic meetings he had addressed this 
year, a fact accounted for by his stand in behalf 
of pioneer settlers against the railroads and cor¬ 
porations which had sought to rob them of their 
homes. Their attentions reminded him of his 
experiences among the California homesteaders 
four years before, and he was glad to counsel and 
sympathize with them. Men who were doing their 
best to establish homes and to rear families amid 
hardships made a peculiar appeal to him, and he 
was ready to serve them at any sacrifice. 

His experiences in the Greeley campaign were 
strikingly unique in several ways. To find him¬ 
self stoutly opposed to most of the men with whom 
he had been in close fellowship for years and who 
had been his faithful supporters, was as remark¬ 
able although perhaps not so embarassing as it 
was to enter into full partnership with those 
against whom he had been waging bitter warfare 
during the same period. The Democrats were 
now his political co-workers, “because the subjects 

9. Julian’s Journal, Sept. 8, 1872. 

10. Ibid. .Nov. 5, 1872. See also Political Recollections, p. 343 et 


seq. 


356 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

on which we had been divided were withdrawn 
from the forum of political discussion. While the 
war lasted, no man hated rebels more sincerely 
or denounced their crime with more severity 
than myself. But the war was now over and new 
questions had to be confronted. So, while slavery 
lasted, no man opposed it more earnestly or de¬ 
cidedly than I did; but when it was abolished and 
the negro had been made a citizen and a voter, 
my quarrel with the slaveholders was at an 
end. ... I saw that the spirit of the im¬ 
precatory psalms was no longer in order. The 
more I pondered the policy of amnesty and the 
farther I went in the canvass, the more thorough¬ 
ly I became reconstructed in heart. I was greatly 
aided of course by my hostility to the organized 
roguery which in the name of Republicanism had 
seized the nation by the throat. It was a pleasant 
surprise to find the Democrats personally and so¬ 
cially quite as kindly and in every way as esti¬ 
mable as Republicans, and I was glad enough to 
be delivered from the glamour which had been 
blinding my vision to the policy of reconciliation 
and peace. I found that multitudes of Democrats 
through a mistaken view of their Constitutional 
obligations had ranged themselves on the side of 
slavery while in their hearts they were opposed 
to it, and rejoiced in its overthrow, . . . while 
very many Republicans were sincere haters of 
the negro and secret believers in his enslave- 
ment.” 11 


11. Unpublished Autobiography. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


357 


On going to Washington after the November 
elections he dined with Chief Justice Chase, and 
with him went back over the political past, touch¬ 
ing also on the present situation, and future pros¬ 
pects. He thought Chase looked prematurely old 
and worn and attributed this to disappointed am¬ 
bition. 12 He also called on Sumner and was sad¬ 
dened by the visit, for he found him broken in 
body and spirit. “He had lost caste with the great 
party that had so long idolized him and which he 
had done so much to create and inspire. He had 
been deserted by the colored race, to whose serv¬ 
ice he had unselfishly dedicated his life. He had 
been degraded from his honored place at the head 
of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 
and for no other reason than the faithful and 
conscientious discharge of his public duty. He 
had been rebuked by the Legislature of his own 
State. 13 His case strikingly suggested that of 
John Quincy Adams in 1807, when the anathemas 
of Massachusetts were showered upon him for 

12. Julian’s Journal, Dec. 22, 1872. One is reminded of Lincoln’s 
characterization of Chase as once and a half bigger than any other 
man of his acquaintance, and also of Henry Watterson’s words anent 
the thwarted presidential aspirations of Webster and Clay: “I read 
with a kind of wonder, and a sickening sense of the littleness of great 
things, those passages in the story of their lives where it is told how 
they stormed and swore when tidings reached them that they had been 
balked of their desires. Yet they might have been so happy: so happy 
in their daily toil, with its lofty aims and fair surroundings: so happy 
in the sense of duty done ; so happy above all in their own Heaven¬ 
sent genius, with its noble opportunities and splendid achievements.” 

13. For his famous Battle Flag Resolution, ‘‘that the names of 
battles with fellow-citizens shall not be continued in the Army Register 
or placed on the Regimental Colors of the United States.” 


358 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

leaving' the Federal party after it had accom¬ 
plished its mission and survived its character, and 
joining the supporters of Jefferson. I sympa¬ 
thized with him profoundly; but his case was not 
so infinitely sad as that of poor Greeley, over 
whose death however the whole nation seemed to 
be in mourning. He had greatly overtaxed him¬ 
self in his masterly and brilliant campaign on the 
stump, in which he displayed unrivaled intellec¬ 
tual resources and versatility. He had exhausted 
himself in watching by the bedside of his dying 
wife. He had been assailed as the enemy of his 
country by the party which he had done more 
than any man in the nation to organize. He had 
been hunted to his grave by political assassins 
whose calumnies broke his heart. He was scarce¬ 
ly less a martyr than Lincoln, or less honored 
after his death, and his graceless defamers now 
seemed to think they could atone for their crime 
by singing his praises. It is easy to speak well 
of the dead. It is very easy, even for base and 
recreant characters, to laud a man’s virtues after 
he has gone to his grave and can no longer stand 
in their path. It is far easier to praise the dead 
than to do justice to the living; and it was not 
strange therefore that eminent clergymen and 
doctors of divinity who had silently witnessed the 
pelting of Mr. Greeley by demagogues and mer¬ 
cenaries during the canvass now poured out their 
eloquence at his grave. What he had sorely 
needed and was religiously entitled to was the 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


359 


sympathy and succor of good men while he lived, 
and especially in his heroic struggle for political 
reconciliation and reform. The circumstances of 
his death made it peculiarly touching and sacra¬ 
mental, and I was inexpressibly glad that I had 
fought his battle so unflinchingly and defended 
him everywhere against his conscienceless assail¬ 
ants.” 14 

Living in retirement Julian and his wife resumed 
systematic reading, varying a rather serious and 
heavy regimen with some of the world’s greatest 
fiction. He went frequently to Washington, some¬ 
times in the interest of settlers whose claims he 
urged before the Interior Department, and some¬ 
times because he had formed the Washington 
habit and could not remain long away, wrote 
occasionally for the newspapers on land matters, 
delivered a few speeches, mingled with neighbors, 
made improvements in his home, and kept a 
steady eye on public affairs. The Credit Mobilier 
revelations, the Beecher trial, the continued 
abuses and scandals of Grant’s administration,— 
all were of absorbing interest and called forth 
pointed comment in letters and private journals. 

An annoyance amounting almost to a personal 
affliction was the removal of the County seat 
from Centerville to Richmond which was finally 

14. Political Recollections, pp. 350, 351, 352. On the day of 
Greeley’s funeral several yards of black broadcloth which had 
been purchased with a view to being made into clothing were hung 
over the entrance to the front door of Julian’s home. 


360 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

consummated after several unsuccessful attempts 
in the summer of 1873. Foreseeing this action, 
his brother, Jacob B. Julian and Sylvester John¬ 
son, a neighbor, had purchased two years before 
a farm just east of Indianapolis which they sub¬ 
divided into lots and christened Irvington. It 
was to be a residence suburb, in which no intoxi¬ 
cating liquors were ever to be bought or sold, and 
to this promising village Julian removed in No¬ 
vember 1873, a new home having been erected 
during the summer. “It is only within the past 
few months that I have come to the reluctant con¬ 
clusion that we cannot remain in Centerville. I 
regret it profoundly, as I never meant to leave 
this land of my birth and early struggles. As 
there is no other point in Wayne County in which 
I wish to live and as I am rather old to go west 
into one of the newer States, I know of nothing 
better than to settle in the vicinity of Indianap¬ 
olis, which is undoubtedly destined to be one of 
the largest cities in the middle west, and where 
we shall be accessible to society, libraries, lec¬ 
tures, etc. There too I shall escape the political 
animosities engendered here within the past 
twenty-five years, aggravated by the Greeley 
movement of last year which lost me so many of 
my old friends.” 15 

The last few months in Centerville were 
anxious and unhappy. The county-seat struggle 
necessitated the rule of mob law in the village a 
part of the time, his nervous troubles returned 


15. Julian’s Journal, Feb. 23, 1873. He was then fifty-six. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


361 


in an aggravated form, and the failure of Jay 
Cooke & Company in September was recognized 
as the sure precursor of a general financial panic. 
This failure was one of the most startling events 
that could have happened, and it seemed a 
singular commentary on the prediction freely 
made the year before of financial ruin in case of 
Greeley’s election. The demand for inflation 
which came from many quarters at this time and 
was voiced in Congress by Morton, Logan and 
others, found no sympathy with Julian because he 
was too thoroughly grounded in the principles of 
sound money to be misled by such specious rea¬ 
soning. But he was seriously crippled by the 
crash, the new home cost double the amount esti¬ 
mated, and bank stock had to be sold at a heavy 
loss in order to pay off notes which he had un¬ 
wisely signed for his brother Jacob. 

A trip to Boston and visits with Garrison, 
Phillips, Theodore D. Weld and other anti-slavery 
friends, and an Abolition Reunion in Chicago 
where he spoke on “Lessons of the Anti-Slavery 
Conflict” pleasantly diversified the spring of 
1874. At this meeting he noted with regret a 
lingering feeling of hostility to Garrison and the 
non-resistants on the part of the old Liberty 
Party men, whose conservatism on the woman 
question also manifested itself when in his talk 
he took occasion to condemn the disfranchisement 
of one-half the citizens of the Republic on account 
of sex. 16 


16. Ibid. June 28, 1874. 



362 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

Perhaps no address of his entire life was more 
carefully thought out or covered a wider and more 
important range than a speech delivered at Rock¬ 
ville, Indiana, on the invitation of personal and 
political friends in the autumn of 1873. His 
theme was “The New Trials of Democracy,” and 
its treatment illustrated the ceaseless activity of 
his mind and his grave concern with the progress 
of humanity. He declared that democracy was 
not ‘born out of the sky, nor wrought in dreams’, 
but that it was necessarily colored by the atmos¬ 
phere in which it lived and was an opportunity 
quite as much as a power. He dealt illuminat- 
ingly with some of the important phases of de¬ 
mocracy and the dangers that it encountered 
under the following heads: ‘The People and the 
Land’, ‘The Growth and Domination of Cities’, 
‘The Power of Great Corporations’, ‘The Labor 
Problem’, ‘Federal Usurpation’, and ‘The Decline 
of Political Morality’. 

Under the last caption he took occasion to char¬ 
acterize both the leading parties as “organized 
obstructions to public welfare, and quite as potent 
for evil as for good.” He declared that their ma¬ 
chinery had long been prostituted to base ends, 
and that their discipline had degenerated into a 
wanton tyranny over individual judgment and 
conscience and an unmixed curse to the country. 
“They present the wretched spectacle of one fac¬ 
tion struggling to keep the other out of power, 
and the other struggling to get in, while roguery 
and charlatanism rule them both. Each holds 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


363 


the other in its orbit, and revolves around a com¬ 
mon center of antagonism, which is its life . . . 
They rival one another in the alacrity with which 
they engage in schemes of plunder and the re¬ 
freshing audacity with which they violate their 
political professions. Each justly charges the 
other with venality and corruption, and each 
pleads the existence of the other as the excuse 
for its own. Neither could survive if the other 
should perish, and either of them would mourn 
the death of the other since it would inevitably 
liberate the people from party thralldom and 
usher in a new dispensation akin to that which 
at first followed the disruption of the old Whig 
party and buried the Democratic party in ir¬ 
retrievable dishonor. . . . The marvellous 

energy displayed by one of these parties during 
the late war has since been triumphantly turned 
into the channels of profligacy and plunder, with 
results that have startled the whole land and 
made its very name a stench; while the other, 
throwing away its many opportunities of retriev¬ 
ing its fortunes and saving its once-honored name 
from disgrace, has joyfully shared in the worst 
misdeeds of its debauched rival, and thus richly 
earned the honors of burial in a common grave. 
No friend of his country should therefore think 
of pouring the new wine of reform into these old 
bottles, now so thoroughly defiled by foul uses and 
so hopelessly beyond the power of disinfection.” 17 

In spite of this scathing arraignment of par- 


17 . Later Speeches, pp. 55, 56. 


364 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

ties, Julian was by no means without hope of de¬ 
mocracy. He thought a perfectly unshackled 
movement of the people, a fellowship of honest 
men in every section of the country, entirely pos¬ 
sible, insuring us the substance and not merely 
the form of free institutions. “We must snatch 
freedom itself from the perilous activities quick¬ 
ened into life by its own spirit. We must search 
out new defenses of democracy in the new trials 
of its life. The grand work of our times is not 
the highest development of favored individuals 
or classes, or the accumulation of great wealth in 
their hands, but the utmost enlightenment and su¬ 
preme welfare of the masses. It is not the excep¬ 
tional culture or commanding advantage of the 
few, but the uplifting of the many to a higher 
level. This is the blessed mission of democracy 
and the true religion of humanity. It may be 
delayed for a season. It may be temporarily 
frustrated by the great and impending dangers I 
have attempted to depict, . . . but all the 

divine forces are on its side. Christianity is 
pledged to its triumph. The great law of social 
evolution foreordains it. Democracy is to come 
in its fulness, . . . but whether this shall 

be sooner or later, and whether heralded by the 
kindly agencies of peace or the harsh power of 
war, must depend upon the wise and timely use 
of opportunities.” 18 

As the time for another presidential campaign 


18. Ibid. p. 57. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


365 


drew near Julian found himself much perplexed. 
The Liberal Republicans, after all, had not found¬ 
ed a party; they had merely tided over an emer¬ 
gency. While many of them had left the 
Republicans in 1872, they had not joined the 
Democratic party, and in default of a new organi¬ 
zation they anxiously hoped that worthy nomina¬ 
tions and a consequent change of policy might 
permit their return to their old allegiance. The 
fearlessness of Benjamin H. Bristow of Kentucky, 
who in 1874 had become Grant’s Secretary of the 
Treasury, in exposing and prosecuting the frauds 
of the famous Whiskey Ring, together with his 
acknowledged high character, brought him promi¬ 
nently before the public as a presidential candi¬ 
date in 1876. Julian seems to have thought well 
of him, though he recorded in his Journal that 
he could not avoid feeling that ‘Kentucky was not 
exactly the right place for the coming man to be 
born in’. 19 But to the general surprise and in 
spite of Blaine’s brilliant showing in the conven¬ 
tion, Hayes and Wheeler became the nominees of 
the Republican party on a platform unequivocally 
endorsing the Grant administration. 20 Tilden and 
Hendricks were nominated by the Democrats, the 
platform being better than that of the other 

19. April 20, 1876. 

20. “Blaine, with all his stock-jobbing record before the country, 
was only defeated by a blunder of his friends, and Bristow had no 
chance because Morton and Conkling opposed him.” Julian’s Journal, 
June 25, 1876. Rhodes says that Bristow was next in line after Blaine 
and might have been nominated but for his residence south of the 
Ohio River. Vol. VII, p. 209. 


366 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


party, Julian thought, although both were too 
non-committal on the subject of finance. 

The country awaited the letters of acceptance 
with solicitude, while Liberals were inclined in 
opposite directions. Hayes’ letter of acceptance 
was a good one, making a decidedly favorable im¬ 
pression, while the long delay of Tilden’s letter 
added to the perplexity of many hesitating men 
who were conscientiously pondering the question 
of political duty. Julian really wished to go with 
the Republicans, but the more he looked at the 
proposition the more impossible it appeared, and 
he finally decided to espouse the cause of Tilden 
should the latter’s letter accepting the nomination 
be satisfactory, as it proved to be. 21 

Julian’s speech on “The Gospel of Reform,” 22 
delivered in the Grand Opera House at Indianap¬ 
olis on August 26th to a magnificent audience, 
opened the campaign in Indiana for Tilden and 
Hendricks, and had a phenomenal circulation. 
Two million copies were distributed by the 
National Democratic Committee while its 
publication in newspapers more than doubled this. 

21. “However awkward to unite with Democrats in a fight against 
old party friends and co-workers, it would be still more awkward to 
join the cohorts of Grant, Morton and the thieves and rings that we 
fought four years ago, who have proved themselves far worse than we 
then branded them, who have never repented of their abuse of Sum¬ 
ner, Greeley and the rest for telling what everybody now knows was 
the truth about Grant and who now ask us to believe them sincere 
in their demand for reform when they have constantly and shamelessly 
belied their professions during the last four years.” Julian’s Journal, 
July 16, 1876. 

22. Later Speeches, p. 106. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


367 


* 


He thoroughly argued the pending political issues 
from the standpoint of an independent voter, and 
although portraying the abuses of Grantism dur¬ 
ing the previous eight years and clearly present¬ 
ing his reasons for supporting the Democratic 
ticket, he did not hesitate to condemn the machin¬ 
ery of both the old parties, and expressly reserved 
his entire political independence. In style, 
method of discussion, skillful marshalling of 
facts, force of argument and effectiveness of ap¬ 
peal it was one of his ablest efforts, and undoubt¬ 
edly had an immense influence. 

The Cincinnati Enquirer which published the 
speech in full called it “the ablest speech of the 
presidential canvass, ... a compact and 
eloquent arraignment of the Republican party as 
it is, and a complete argument, from the stand¬ 
point of an original Abolitionist and original Re¬ 
publican and Liberal, for the support of Tilden 
and Hendricks.” 23 The Louisville Courier-Jour¬ 
nal said: “Mr. Julian speaks as an independent 
voter and he has not exaggerated the situation. 
He puts his facts together well and there is not a 
fair-minded Republican voter who will not profit 
by a careful perusal of them.” 24 The Chicago 
Times declared: “Julian is one of the clearest 
minds in politics, . . . not a partisan in any 

sense. The thoughts and arguments of Julian are 
so far from the average stump effort that the 

23. Aug. 31, 1876. 

24. Aug. 28, 1876. 


368 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


speech as presented in full this morning will am¬ 
ply repay a close reading. There is not a dull 
line, a vague thought or a political commonplace 
in it.” 25 

Of course the Indianapolis Sentinel and the In¬ 
dianapolis Journal looked upon it from opposite 
angles, and the News viewed it from a conserv¬ 
ative middle ground, saying: “Mr. Julian has 
a faculty of presenting whatever he has to offer 
in the way of argument in a very clear light, and 
he is a master of invective. As works of art his 
speeches are always admirable. In the present 
case, his arraignment of the president and his im¬ 
mediate following, including the 'senatorial 
group’, is severe but just . . . But even tak¬ 

ing as acknowledged truths all the severe things 
Mr. Julian has to say of the condition of public 
affairs, and the demoralizing influence of such 
men as Morton and Cameron and Shepherd 
. . . the conviction remains that Mr. Julian 

seeks a path to reform which is hedged on either 
hand with frightful dangers.” 26 

Julian took the stump with some misgivings as 
to his physical endurance, but was able to keep 
going till the day of the election, October 10th, 27 
after which he went to Michigan and Wisconsin, 
speaking also twice in Chicago. He encountered 

25. Ibid. August 28, 1876. 

26. August 28, 1876. 

27. Preceding the adoption of a special Constitutional amendment 
of 1881, state elections in Indiana were held on the second Tuesday in 
October. Since 1881, however, state elections are held on the same 
day as the national election. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


369 


far less abuse than had been his lot in 1872, the 
newspapers treating him with unusual fairness, 
and enjoyed the campaign exceedingly. One of 
his cleverest speeches was made at Cincinnati in 
company with Senator Thurman of Ohio, at Rob¬ 
inson's Opera House. Others had preceded him, 
and he probably thought the audience in a mood 
for a little fun, for his sportive and sometimes 
satirical remarks were almost constantly inter¬ 
rupted by laughter and applause. 28 He continued 
his tour eastward, speaking at Pittsburgh, Phila¬ 
delphia 20 and New York City, where he dined with 
Governor Tilden and had a full and free discus¬ 
sion of public matters. Tilden’s remark at din¬ 
ner, “The Democratic party needs remodeling" 
pleased him of course, and both recalled pleas¬ 
antly the fact that they had attended the Buffalo 
convention as delegates in 1848. He saw nothing 
of the coldness generally attributed to Tilden and 
was agreeably surprised to find him “a fine look¬ 
ing well preserved old gentleman with a first rate 
prospect of living from ten to twenty years 
longer." 30 

Julian entertained no doubt as to the result of 

28. Cincinnati Enquirer, Oct. 31, 1876. The Cincinnati Gazette 
said of this speech on the same date: “The effort of Hon. George W. 
Julian was full of dash and vigor and smart things, like Ingersoll, 
and kept the audience in amazingly good spirits.” 

29. “For more than an hour and a half the Hon. Geo. W. Julian 
of Indiana, one of the founders of the Republican party as well as 
one of its ablest members, delighted 4,000 people at the Forrest Man¬ 
sion Hall with his scathing wit and superb eloquence.” Philadelphia 
Chronicle, Nov. 3, 1876. 

30. Julian’s Journal, Dec. 10, 1876. 


24—24142 


370 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

the election, and the early returns seemed to settle 
it beyond controversy. Nearly all the Republican 
morning newspapers the next day gave it up and 
fell to moralizing on the subject. But that night 
Secretary Chandler, chairman of the Republican 
National committee confidently claimed the vic¬ 
tory and all eyes were turned to Louisiana, 
Florida and South Carolina. The case continued 
in doubt and on November 11th came a telegram 
to Julian from Abram S. Hewitt, chairman of the 
Democratic National Committee, requesting him 
as one of a company of well known public men 
to repair to New Orleans for the purpose of 
watching the proceedings of the Louisiana Re¬ 
turning Board, and securing if possible an honest 
count of the vote. Julian was much jaded by his 
labors and at first felt that he could not undertake 
this unexpected additional service, but after com¬ 
mittees and individuals had visited him and urged 
his going as a public duty he set out, with re¬ 
luctance, on the evening of the 14th. He found 
the city of New Orleans perfectly quiet and at 
once realized how unnecessary and gratuitous had 
been the sending of troops there. 

Soon after his arrival he received calls from 
Mr. Pinchback, Governor Warmoth, Governor 
Antoine and other prominent men, and found that 
his Indianapolis speech had insured for him a 
cordial welcome. The Democrats down there had 
not forgotten his strong words of more than a 
quarter of a century before in dealing with slav- 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


371 


ery and slave holders; but slavery was abolished. 
They had fallen into the clutches of rogues who 
belonged to the party with which he had for¬ 
merly acted, and when they found him, an old 
Abolitionist, ready to come to their rescue they 
seemed to be as sincerely and warmly his friends 
as if he had been with them from the beginning. 
As a rule, they were ready to confess that slavery 
had been their curse, and were now anxious only 
for good government and an opportunity to re¬ 
build their shattered fortunes. His intercourse 
with them was exceedingly pleasant, and so many 
invitations poured in upon him that he was 
obliged to deny himself in order to look after the 
business on which he had come. He had not ex¬ 
pected to be in New Orleans more than a week, 
but the work dragged along so that not until De¬ 
cember 7th, was he able to leave for home. The 
rascalities of the Returning Board exceeded any¬ 
thing he had supposed possible, and he considered 
the counting out of Tilden’s majority of 8,000 
votes an outrage to which the people of the United 
States should not submit. 

On returning to Indianapolis he found the De¬ 
mocracy of Indiana in full sympathy with his 
views as to the duty of resisting the conspiracy by 
which Governor Tilden was to be deprived of the 
office to which he had been chosen. The State 
Central Committee soon appointed a mass conven¬ 
tion at Indianapolis for January 8th, for the pur¬ 
pose of giving expression to the spirit and 


372 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


purpose of the people, and invited Julian to de¬ 
liver an address on that occasion on the subject 
of “The Louisiana Returning Board.” This he 
did in a thorough manner, overhauling the action 
of Senator Sherman and his associates in petti¬ 
fogging their cause and evading an honest search 
after the truth; exposing the knavery of the Board 
in refusing to fill its existing vacancy and hiding 
its performances under the mantle of darkness; 
pointing out the autocratic power with which the 
Republican officials of the State were armed, and 
painting the rule of lawlessness and crime which 
had afflicted Louisiana for years; and triumph¬ 
antly meeting the charge of Democratic intimida¬ 
tion by fact, argument and ridicule. This 
address called forth an enthusiastic response 
from one of the largest popular gatherings ever 
held in the State and was widely circulated 
through special editions of many of the leading 
dailies of the country. 31 

The adoption of the Electoral Commission plan 
however balked the popular indignation and 
marked the first step of the Democrats in sur¬ 
rendering to the other side their clear right to the 
victory they had won. Julian opposed this plan 

31. Of this speech the Cincinnati Commercial, Murat Halstead’s 
paper, said editorially on Jan. 9, 1877: 

“Into it he poured all the gall of disappointment, all the bitter¬ 
ness of jealousy, all the hatred of envy, all the eloquence of abuse that 
could originate in the brain of one of the ablest, most brilliant, meanest 
and most malignant of men—a man whose nature is great and small, 
admirable and hateful, with the brain of a man and a statesman and 
the soul of a cynic and misanthrope—one of the brightest, greatest, 
meanest of mankind.” 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


373 


from the first and deplored the infatuation which 
was willing to commit the dispute to the arbitra¬ 
ment of any Republican Senator or Supreme Court 
Judge. He was as unwilling to trust such men 
as he would have been to allow a man with whom 
he was at law to sit as judge in the case; and he 
could see no occasion for the proceeding, inas¬ 
much as the Constitution had already provided a 
tribunal for the settlement of the dispute in the 
two Houses of Congress. The Democrats how¬ 
ever rushed headlong into the artfully baited Re¬ 
publican trap, and thus allowed themselves to be 
cheated out of the Presidency. So thought 
Julian, and it made him heart-sick. “I had had 
a good share of political experience,” said he, “in¬ 
cluding several trying personal defeats, but I had 
encountered nothing more trying than this. I 
saw no silver lining to the cloud. It seemed to 
me an unmixed and unrelieved humiliation. The 
Democrats and their Liberal allies had gloriously 
triumphed, but they threw away their victory be¬ 
cause they had no leader. The masses were at all 
times ready for decisive action, if a Jackson had 
been at hand to point the way. I felt so disap¬ 
pointed and disgusted that on February 20th, I 
started to Washington, hoping I might be able to 
do something in bracing up Democrats to defeat 
the Electoral conspiracy; but I soon found that 
nothing could be done, although a formidable 
minority was at work. The party was hopelessly 
divided, while Hayes was securing votes for the 


374 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

completion of the count by all sorts of promises 
through his friends. A pretty vigorous resist¬ 
ance was made till the morning of March 2nd, 
when the great national theft was consummated. 
When the State of South Carolina was reached 
I was strongly urged by Judge Black, Mr. Merrick 
and others to argue the case, and if I had been 
notified in time I would have done so, as it in¬ 
volved questions with which I considered myself 
competent to deal. But I had not sufficient time 
for preparation and declined. ... I know of 
course that time will adjust and rectify all things, 
but many will go down to their graves without 
being permitted to witness the vindication of the 
right.” 32 


32. Julian’s Journal, Mar. 11, 1877. 


CHAPTER XV 


Articles for the Reviews—Campaign of 1880 — 
Political Recollections—Death of Laura 
Giddings Julian—Election of Cleve¬ 
land—Surveyor General of 
New Mexico 

Julian’s disappointment and vexation over the 
result of the presidential contest soon gave way 
to interest in the future. He felt increasingly the 
desirability of steady employment, both for the 
sake of his health and because he needed to earn 
some money. While considering what was best 
to be done he decided to write the story of his life 
for his children, and to this task the summer of 
1877 was mainly devoted. He and Mrs. Julian 
also found time to read a great many books, old 
and new. He was actively interested in a village 
“school war” in the early autumn which caused 
him much annoyance, and in which he felt con¬ 
strained to oppose some of his near neighbors who 
had forcibly ejected from the school-house a 
worthy New England teacher who had served 
efficiently the preceding season and had been en¬ 
gaged by the old school board for another year. 
As in other cases, “the peremptoriness of his con¬ 
victions” prevented his admitting any excuse for 
the conduct of men who would lay violent hands 
upon a woman. He advised Miss Lydia R. Put- 


(375) 


876 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

nam to bring suit, which she did, and the offend¬ 
ers had to pay dearly, both financially and in loss 
of standing in the community. 

While in Washington in January, 1878, whither 
he went frequently to look after legal cases in 
which he was employed, chiefly concerning land 
matters, he was called upon by Allen Thorndike 
Rice, editor of the North American Review and 
asked to furnish an article for the March issue 
of the magazine on “The Death Struggle of the 
Republican Party.” This offer both surprised 
and pleased him, and he agreed to perform the 
task. It was while on this trip to Washington 
that he learned, in a conversation with Abram S. 
Hewitt, chairman of the Democratic National 
Committee in 1876, that had Tilden become Presi¬ 
dent he would have tendered Julian the post of 
Secretary of the Interior. Apropos of this Julian 
recorded in his Journal : “It is best for me as 
it is, as I should have undertaken it and would 
have broken down through lack of health for so 
arduous and responsible a position: but I am 
gratified to have been thought worthy and fit for 
it.” 1 This philosophy was characteristic of him. 
When the fates seemed to have decided against 
him he quickly adjusted himself to the situation 
and concluded that the result was after all fortu¬ 
nate. So when a struggle was on, there was but 
one right side and no possibility of halting, nor 
any excuse for misgivings. But once it was over, 


1. Julian’s Journal, March 17, 1878. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


377 


and his side the loser, he set himself to pointing 
out the extenuating circumstances of defeat and 
fixed his mind on the next engagement. 

His article for the North American Review was 
forwarded on February 10th, and three days later 
came this letter : 

“The North American Review 
549 & 551 Broadway, New York 

Feb. 12, ’78. 

“Hon. George W. Julian, 

Dear Sir: 

Your article is indeed fine. I say with Jeffrey, 
'Where can you have picked up your style?’ Such 
work as you have given us will have a permanent 
place in American literature. 

By this mail I send proof. . . . Pray mail 

your revise tomorrow evening. 

Permit me to thank you for undertaking the 
task which you have performed so well and so 
promptly. You will make Rome howl. Believe 
me, 

Yours very truly, 

A. Thorndike Rice.” 5 

The opening paragraph indicates the style and 
temper of this contribution. After asserting that 
the origin and growth of parties in countries pos¬ 
sessing popular governments and controlled by 
public opinion follow the laws of development at¬ 
tending tropical forests, he describes the many 
difficulties attending the development of a seed 


2. Julian Letters. 


378 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

from the time it falls to the earth till it spreads 
its branches in the air, and then continues: 

“So with the Republican party. Chilled by 
want of sympathy, denounced as violators of the 
Constitution, derided as visionary enthusiasts, 
persecuted as disturbers of the public peace, the 
founders of this party were faithful to their 
mission—the defense of human liberty. Amid 
contempt, misrepresentation, threatenings, like 
the Earl of Oxford they kept alive the bird in 
their bosom, and were steadfast to the end. Un¬ 
kind was the soil in which they deposited their 
little seed. Long and cruel were the years before 
germination really began. But in time the ten¬ 
der rootlets reached the rich, warm sympathies of 
human hearts, and the plant grew apace. Ver¬ 
dant leaf and spreading branch followed, and be¬ 
neath the protecting shade gathered the hopes of 
the world’s oppressed. The faithful hearts of the 
first planters rejoiced in the work, and their 
strong hands could pluck some fragrant flowers 
that gave promise of early fruit—the only reward 
they sought. But that which had long been seen 
only by the eye of faith became at length visible 
to the eye of flesh, and birds of prey winged their 
way to the stately tree, befouling its purity, and 
creeping parasites of every kind fastened upon 
trunk and limb, exhausting their substance, and 
converting the fair fruit of sincerity into apples 
of Sodom. The faithful planters who had 
watched and waited, as the shepherds in the East 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


379 


the guiding star, have been driven from the 
garden, and to secure their exclusion, self-seeking 
demons, with sword of corruption, keep watch at 
the gates. Like the Communists of Paris, they 
forbid the entrance to the temple of liberty to the 
builders of the edifice and the sincere worshippers 
at its altar, and stand ready to destroy it unless 
permitted to control. Let us glance at the his¬ 
tory of the Republican party and indicate some 
of the methods by which the deforming hand of 
ambition has been able to gain the command of 
its fortunes and is now lashing it to death.” 3 

This “glance” verified Rice’s prediction and 
made “Rome howl”, notably in elaborate replies 
in the May issue of the Review by the two sena¬ 
tors from Wisconsin, Matt H. Carpenter and 
Timothy 0. Howe. 4 These attacked but did not 
weaken his positions, and the article of Senator 
Howe called forth from Julian a brief and incisive 
communication in the New York World of May 
7th. 

He had now acquired a taste for literary work, 
and during the same year two other articles from 
his pen appeared, one in the North American Re¬ 
view for September entitled “Is The Reformer 
Any Longer Needed?” and the other in the No¬ 
vember issue of the International Review on “The 
Pending Ordeals of Democracy”. The former 
was offered to The Atlantic Monthly where it 

3. North American Review, Vol. 126, p. 262. 

4. Ibid. May, 1878. 


380 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

would have made its appearance had Julian con¬ 
sented to certain alterations, as the following let¬ 
ter from the editor shows: 

“Editorial Office of 
The Atlantic Monthly 
Winthrop Square 
Boston 

July 12, 1878 

“My dear Sir: 

I have read your paper with great interest and 
pleasure. I think it particularly strong, fresh 
and good in its leading idea, namely the wicked¬ 
ness and killing absurdity of applying to the 
moral world a scientific hypothesis of the material 
creation; you have a real find in that. But I 
should be unwilling to admit to the magazine your 
censure of Mr. Hayes’ administration; and I feel 
that you w r ould weaken with most of our readers 
the strength of your real position by affirming so 
plainly as you do the desirability of female suf¬ 
frage. 

I must therefore return the pages, greatly as I 
regret to do so. If you can modify it in the par¬ 
ticulars mentioned. ... I should be glad to 
print the article. Its value is in the great prin¬ 
ciple so distinctly presented. 

Yours very truly, 

W. D. Howells.” 5 

Julian declined to make these changes and as 
before stated his article appeared in the Septem- 


5. Julian Letters. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


881 


ber North American Review. The International 
Review for January, 1879, contained an article of 
his on “Suffrage, A Birthright”, and in the March 
Atlantic was another on “Our Land Policy”. All 
these were well received and widely copied, and 
had he been in independent circumstances it is 
probable that he would have given himself • en¬ 
tirely to such pursuits, for he had a strong bent 
in this direction. But these and the incidental 
law cases in which he was engaged were not suffi¬ 
ciently remunerative to meet the needs of his fam¬ 
ily. 6 Accordingly, in the spring of 1879 he 
formed a legal partnership with William A. Meloy 
of Washington, D. C., and for several years spent 
considerable time in the National Capital. But 
about this time the sight of his right eye almost 
failed and he developed a serious bronchial affec¬ 
tion which further impeded his activities. 
Mrs. Julian was his amanuensis and reader 
henceforward, and constantly cheered and en¬ 
couraged him, as his Journal bears witness. The 
list of books read by them during the decade be¬ 
ginning with 1874, at the end of which her death 
occurred, is indeed formidable, even for readers 
so voracious as they were, and one wonders that 
there was time for anything else. But another 
trip to California, frequent visits to Washington, 

6. Commenting on the forced sale of bank stock at a mere frac¬ 
tion of what it had cost and what it would later be worth, in order 
to pay off notes for his brother, he recorded a little later: “The fact 
that I have not had brains enough to hold on to my accumulations and 
thus provide suitably for my family is most humiliating-.” Journal, 
May 25, 1879. 


382 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


numerous addresses and magazine articles, be¬ 
sides participation in the campaign of 1880 and 
the preparation and publication of Political Recol¬ 
lections, varied the program. Pleasing incidents 
of the California expedition were stops in Car¬ 
rollton, Missouri, with his old Greenfield friend 
and co-founder of the Dark Lyceum, Judge 
George Pattison, and with Governor Charles 
Robinson 7 in Lawrence, Kansas, where he spoke 
at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first set¬ 
tlement of Kansas and met for the first time Ed¬ 
ward Everett Hale. In San Francisco he became 
acquainted with Henry George who told him he 
had just arranged with the Appletons for the pub¬ 
lication of a volume entitled Progress and Pov¬ 
erty, an advance copy of which suitably inscribed 
George soon afterwards sent Julian. 8 

Before going to California Julian prepared an 
article for the International Review entitled 
“Some Political Notes and Queries” which ap¬ 
peared anonymously in the August (1879) issue, 
and made quite a stir. It was an arraignment of 
the old political parties and an appeal to the in¬ 
dependent voter. 

He said: “Political independence is the de¬ 
mand of the hour. In the case of all great party 
divisions there is a third party, not under the drill 
of either, which holds the balance of power; and 

7. Charles Robinson, Free State governor of Kansas, who with 
his wife undei*went many hardships during the dark days preceding 
the Civil War. 

8. Julian’s Journal, October 10, 1879. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


383 


nothing is now more needed than accessions to 
that party and a fresh instalment of courage. It 
may seem a solecism, but it is nevertheless true 
that in free governments minorities often rule. 
Our independent voters are already strong enough 
to have illustrated this truth. In 1872 the Re¬ 
publicans carried New York by a majority of fifty 
thousand votes. In 1874 the Democrats tri¬ 
umphed by the same majority,—thus showing 
that the State was not divided into two parties 
but three, and that the potency of the party bat¬ 
tle-cry was dependent upon outside help. . . . 

As the make-weight in party divisions they are 
able to create the majority they desire, and this 
power imposes upon them a very grave respon¬ 
sibility and invests their action with a command¬ 
ing interest. It is true that they are compelled 
to make themselves of no reputation. They are 
able to parade no grand procession of followers. 
They are allowed no triumphs when their victory 
is won. They are rewarded by none of the spoils 
of office. They are obliged to face the general 
hostility and scorn which the smallness of their 
numbers and the potency of their action naturally 
invoke. They are styled ‘dreamers’, ‘impracti- 
cables’ and ‘malcontents’; but they are neverthe¬ 
less the true conservative force in our politics and 
the real leaven of reform. Like the mem¬ 
bers of other parties they are liable to make mis¬ 
takes. Their lack of organization and discipline 
is certainly attended by some disadvantages. In- 


384 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

dependent voters can accomplish nothing in the 
role of trimmers and mercenaries. In truth, the 
crying need of the times is character in politics. 
Character is the condition precedent of every 
worthy achievement. The Whig party perished 
not merely because the issues on which it was 
organized had been settled, but because its con¬ 
science left it and drew after it a formidable force 
in the fight against slavery. In disowning their 
party allegiance and unfurling their own banner, 
these political independents followed the example 
of Fox and Wesley in a different field of reform. 
They adopted the true method. 

. “The triumph of the Republican party in 1860 
was the culmination and ripe fruit of independent 
voting, beginning with the old Liberty party and 
the Free Soil movement which followed it. These 
were largely reinforced by recruits from the 
Democratic party, and its defeat in 1860 would 
not have been possible without the help of these 
desertions of honest and patriotic men from its 
ranks. We believe we are safe in saying that in 
every great trial of the country independent vot¬ 
ing has been its deliverance. It is the sovereign 
remedy when parties sink into factions; and if 
the country is not lifted out of the slough of gen¬ 
eral debauchment and misgovernment in which it 
now lies floundering, it will be the fault of this 
saving balance of power. We do not say that it 
can itself accomplish so grand a task, but it can 
inaugurate it. It can rally and organize its forces 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


385 


and gather strength through its example of politi¬ 
cal courage and independence. It can open the 
way for other movements which will naturally 
affiliate in the overthrow of effete organizations 
and the final creation of new ones. It can rouse 
laggards and cowards from their supineness, and 
make uneasy the consciences of men who are held 
in a false position by timidity and habit. As we 
have already said, the rule of existing parties is 
prolonged by the mere sufferance of men who de¬ 
plore it, while they submit to its authority. In 
both (parties) there is an element of honesty quite 
strong enough to command respect and dictate 
terms, if it possessed the courage to act.” 9 

This article called forth various guesses as to 
its author, one of which is spoken of in the follow¬ 
ing letter from one of the editors of the Revieiv, 
a future party leader whose star, then scarcely 
discernible above the horizon, gave no hint of the 
eclipse which was to overtake it some forty years 
later: 

“East Point, Nahant, 

Aug. 1st, 1879. 

“Dear Sir: 

I enclose some extracts from the newspapers 
here which may interest you. Your article came 
so near my own convictions that you see the paper 
has been generally attributed to me. I differed 
from you only in thinking your general tone as 
to the future too gloomy. Not desiring to take 

9. International Review, Aug., 1879. 


25—24142 


386 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


credit however which does not belong to me and 
which has been attributed to me by name, I told 
the editor of the Herald that I was not the author. 

It is pleasant to see that the arrow of your 
wholesome criticism has gone home, as is shown 
by the extract from the Journal, our most parti¬ 
san Republican sheet. The other papers,—the 
Springfield Republican and the Herald, are both 
Independent and sympathize. 

Very truly yrs. 

H. C. Lodge.” 10 

The other editor of the International Review, 
John T. Morse, Jr., wrote Mr. Julian: 

“I fully coincide in all your views and am heart¬ 
ily pleased at the forcible manner in which you 
have expressed them. I have had no article of¬ 
fered to me which has pleased me better than 

i 

yours. I only doubt whether the chances of Gen. 
Grant and Mr. Blaine are so good as you state. 11 
But I am not in a good position to judge and 
should be obliged, tho’ reluctantly, to accept your 
opinion upon these points.” 12 

Julian’s article on “The Abuse of the Ballot and 
Its Remedy” in the same Review the following 
May, still further showed the bent of his mind. 
Keeping his eye on the political situation, he was 
convinced that Grant and Tilden would be the 
respective standard bearers and was much sur¬ 
prised when Garfield and Hancock were nomi- 

10. Julian Letters. 

11. In this article Julian predicted the nomination by the next 
Republican National Convention of Grant or Blaine. 

12. Julian Letters. July 7, 1879. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


387 


nated. The independent organization he so much 
desired had not materialized. And remember¬ 
ing Garfield’s connection with the Credit Mobilier 
scandal and his failure to raise his voice against 
Grantism, bearing in mind particularly the per¬ 
sistent efforts to cover up Republican short-com¬ 
ings by vigorous waving of the “bloody shirt”, 
and looking upon General Hancock as a man of 
unquestioned integrity with the courage and 
strength to live up to the splendid opportunity his 
election would offer, he had no hesitation in decid¬ 
ing to support the Democratic ticket. 13 The 
nomination of William H. English was distasteful 
to him. The party platforms presented no well- 
defined issue save as to the tariff, but no one 
seemed to expect this issue to dominate. “We 
have outlived the era in which clearly defined 
questions of policy formed the pivots upon which 
the action of parties turned. . . . But since 

one of these parties will certainly rule the country 
for the next four years, the question submitted to 
the popular judgment is a general one, involving 
simply the choice to be made between them, and 
the personal qualities of their standard bearers.” 14 

13. “Quite unexpectedly, Garfield was nominated at Chicago. He 
is a man of brains, and a far better specimen of a leader than Blaine, 
Sherman and the rest; but if his friends had not forgotten his record 
in the excitement of the moment he would hardly have been nominated. 
The nomination of Hancock by the Democrats was an equal surprise. 
I don’t like military presidents, and if I believed he would surround 
himself with the sort of moral and political trash that Grant de¬ 
lighted in I certainly would not support him. But he is a perfectly 
clean man, with the instincts of a gentleman, and can be trusted. 
Julian’s Journal, July 4, 1880. 

14. Later Speeches, p. 180. 


388 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


In the speech from which the foregoing is 
taken, which was delivered in the Wigwam at In¬ 
dianapolis on August 24, 1880, at the opening of 
the campaign, he insisted that it was not the 
Democratic party of 1860, but the Democratic 
party of 1880, inevitably molded and instructed 
by great historic events, that was asking to be 
entrusted with the government for the next four 
years. It could not fairly be reproached for an 
administrative record which it had had no oppor¬ 
tunity to make nor be condemned on any theory of 
constructive guilt and imputed depravity. The 
same reasoning applied likewise to the Republican 
party. Its fitness to administer the government 
now was by no means established by its having 
crushed out the rebellion and abolished slavery, 
in which it had the powerful and indispensable co¬ 
operation of Democrats. We must be guided 
mainly by the facts which made up the civil ad¬ 
ministration of the government since the close of 
the war and the settlement of the questions it 
involved. What claim had the Republican party 
to a longer lease of power founded on its record 
of the past dozen years? He then proceeded to 
show its recreancy to its platforms of 1868, 1872, 
and 1876, which constituted so many danger sig¬ 
nals along its pathway. He declared that the Re¬ 
publican leaders seemed to understand this per¬ 
fectly, for at the very threshold of the present 
canvass they were asking that their misdeeds of 
the past twelve years be condoned on the score of 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


389 


the party’s war record and the total depravity of 
the Democratic party. 15 

Julian’s plea for peace between the North and 
the South and for the re-arrangement of parties 
on questions wholly disconnected with the settled 
issues of the past was sound and forcible, digni¬ 
fied and just. Finally he insisted that the only 
way to close the era of sectional estrangement and 
re-establish the orderly and healthy administra-* 
tion of affairs was to drive the Republican party 
from power and place the government in other 
hands. 

“This conclusion is not at all affected by the 
conduct of the Democratic party years ago, in its 
relations to slavery and the war, nor by its record 
since. It has not been charged with the admin¬ 
istration of national affairs for many years, with 
the slight exception of its recent ascendancy in 
Congress, during which the power of the lobby 
has been broken, the political and social atmos¬ 
phere of Washington improved, and the annual 
expenditures of the government greatly reduced. 
But I do not rest the case upon these facts. The 
Democratic party is not innocent of very grave 
political mistakes and offenses. This has been 
especially true in particular States and districts 
during the dispensation of plunder and misgov- 
ernment which marked the two administrations 
of General Grant. During the years of sectional 
bitterness unavoidably resulting from the war, 

15. Ibid. pp. 181-182. 


390 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

and needlessly aggravated by demagogues, the 
Democratic party had a very trying experience, 
and often sadly failed in meeting the obligations 
of patriotism and statesmanship. I am not here 
to defend it where its conduct is not defensible. 
I do not disguise the fact that should it now re¬ 
gain power it will have on its hands a work of 
exceeding difficulty. I do not believe in the power 
of any party to work miracles, but it is the only 
instrument through which the government can 
now be rescued from the depraved dynasty which 
controls it, and which as I have shown has com¬ 
pletely lost the power of self-recovery. We can¬ 
not afford to postpone the work of saving the 
country till a perfect party shall offer to under¬ 
take it; and it is always wiser to run the hazard 
of possible or even probable evils than voluntarily 
to accept those which are certain. Twenty years 
of power would demoralize a party of angels. It 
would convert them into a governing class, with 
interests wholly apart from those of the people, 
and the complete overhauling of their misdeeds 
would only be possible through a new party 
stimulated in its work by a political victory and 
having control of their records .” 16 

In conclusion he dealt with the characters of 
the respective standard bearers, in a manner dis¬ 
passionate and thorough, leaving Garfield’s fame 
sadly smirched, his crowning act of perfidy being 
his conduct as a member of the Louisiana Return* 


1G. Ibid. pp. 199-200. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


391 


ing Board. This speech of Julian’s was fully up 
to the level of his main efforts of the preceding 
two presidential campaigns, perhaps a little more 
judicial in its general tone, and it had a wide 
circulation. Of course it was not sufficiently 
partisan to be thoroughly acceptable to all the 
Democrats, and his campaign this year was under 
the auspices entirely of the National (not the 
State) Democratic Committee. After the Indi¬ 
ana election, which then occurred in October, he 
spent two weeks campaigning with Senator Doo¬ 
little of Wisconsin in eastern New York, New 
Jersey and Connecticut. The success of the Re¬ 
publicans in Indiana was a complete surprise to 
Julian, 17 but he still believed the general verdict 
would be in favor of the Democrats. The final 
result however was not so utterly depressing as 
it had been in 1872 and 1876. He had gone up 
‘Salt River’ so frequently that its navigation was 
far from insupportably unpleasant. The political 
tide was still against him, but he comforted him¬ 
self with the assurance that he had been in the 
right. No man had successfully controverted the 
conclusions of his speech of August 24th, and this 

17. “I found myself stunned and dumbfounded. Universal gloom 
among Democrats succeeded universal joy and exultant confidence. All 
signs pointed to an overwhelming victory, but all signs signally failed. 
The Republicans broke forth in shouts, songs, and all sorts of extrava¬ 
gant demonstrations. . . . The past is beyond recall, and the thing 

to do is to go right on with the fight. The prospect of electing Han¬ 
cock is dubious, but we may yet win. I am just in receipt of a tele¬ 
gram from Barnum (chairman of the National Democratic Committee) 
asking me to come to New York at once, and I shall go today.” 
Julian’s Journal, Oct. 14, 1880. 


392 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


together with his efforts in the Greeley and Tilden 
campaigns, he thought must bear witness to the 
truth in years to come. His “faith was large in 
time, and that which worketh to some perfect 
end.” 

Julian had a marked disposition to seek out and 
endeavor publicly to set right men who seemed to 
have been slighted by history. An instance of 
this was his article in the International Review 
for June, 1882, on “The Genesis of Modern 
Abolitionism”. In this article he clearly proved 
that Charles Osborn, a Quaker preacher of North 
Carolina, and not William Lloyd Garrison, was 
the first to proclaim the duty of immediate and 
unconditional emancipation in the United States. 
This drew the fire of several Garrison enthusiasts, 
one of whom, Oliver Johnson, a co-worker with 
the great New England Abolitionist and one of 
his biographers, replied to Julian in the Septem¬ 
ber issue of the Review, and was in turn answered 
in the November number. Another instance of 
this sort of attention on Julian’s part was his 
sketch some ten years later of “Thomas Morris, 
A Forgotten Hero”, 18 dealing with an early anti¬ 
slavery United States Senator from Ohio, which 
was given several times as an address before 
literary clubs before being printed by the Chicago 
Inter-Ocean. Perhaps nothing afforded him more 
genuine satisfaction than such efforts in behalf 

18. Morris, born in Virginia in 1776, took his scat as a Demo¬ 
cratic United States Senator from Ohio in 1833, and bravely stood up 
against Clay and Calhoun in behalf of the right of anti-slavery petition. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


893 


of faithful servants in the cause of freedom who 
seemed to have been overlooked or to have failed 
of just recognition. 

Towards the close of the year 1882 he prepared 
three articles on the power of railways over the 
government, the first of which appeared in the 
Internationl Review for February, 1883, and 
was entitled “Our Land Grant Railways in Con¬ 
gress’’, and the second the following month in the 
North American Review on “Railway Influence 
in the General Land Office”. The latter called 
forth a rejoinder from Carl Shurz, then Secretary 
of the Interior, in the New York Evening Post, 
to which Julian replied in the New York World, 
Schurz again replying in the Sun. Henry Beard, 
a railroad attorney of Washington City, also en¬ 
tered the lists against Julian in an elaborate 
pamphlet, this being answered by the Reporter, 
a legal publication of Washington. Julian’s third 
article, “Our Land Grant Railways in the Fed¬ 
eral Courts”, was declined by the International 
Review without an assigned reason, at the end of 
two months, and by the North American on ac¬ 
count of its length. But in both cases Julian be¬ 
lieved the real reason was their reluctance to ap¬ 
pear as the medium of an attack on the Supreme 
Court. 19 It appeared in the Indiana Laiv Maga¬ 
zine, and was also printed in pamphlet and sent 
to newspapers which gave it still wider publicity 
and many of which commented on it favorably. 


19. Julian’s Journal, June 10, 1883. 


394 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

Julian’s volume of Political Recollections made 
its appearance in November, 1883 from the press 
of Jansen, McClurg & Co., Chicago, and called 
forth wide and altogether friendly comment. 
With Mrs. Julian’s valuable assistance as aman¬ 
uensis and in revising and polishing he had 
devoted considerable time to this work for more 
than a year, and some chapters had been published 
in magazines. Beginning with the campaign of 
1840, the book gives a running account of politi¬ 
cal movements in this country down to the close 
of the Greeley campaign, with many pen pictures 
of the leaders of both great parties. It grieved 
him to discover, after its appearance, several 
errors in names and dates, and he therefore care¬ 
fully prepared the copy for a new edition, which 
however was not issued. 

Mrs. Julian’s sudden death from heart-disease 
on March 31, 1884, during his absence in Wash¬ 
ington, was a blow that only the thought of his 
children and their need armed him with courage 
to bear. He gave up his law partnership in Wash¬ 
ington, lived among his books, and bravely sought 
to adapt himself to the changed conditions of 
life. 

Partly in order to escape from sad reflections 
and partly because it was not possible to divorce 
himself entirely from politics, he agreed to make 
a few speeches in behalf of Cleveland in the cam¬ 
paign of 1884. His main address on “The Re¬ 
publican Party and Reform” was delivered on 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


395 


August 28th in the Park Theatre, Indianapolis. 20 
This was a vigorous indictment of a great organi¬ 
zation and its chosen standardbearer, Blaine, and 
an earnest plea for political morality. That his 
plea did not fall on deaf ears was indicated in 
various ways, notably in the result of the fall 
elections. The latter half of October was occupied 
by a speaking tour in eastern Wisconsin, an under¬ 
taking beyond his strength. Two congestive chills 
warned him of danger, yet he persisted in filling 
his engagements, and strange to say, election day 
found him in little worse condition than usual. 
Of course the result was to his liking; it was 
what he had longed and labored for since 1872. 

During the winter and spring he was constant¬ 
ly bewildered as to what he ought to do or could 
do to earn some money, for he was poor. At 
length, on the advice of friends in different parts 
of the country, he decided to seek the position of 
Commissioner of the General Land Office, a place 
for which his familiarity with land matters, 
dating back to his service in the Thirty-first Con¬ 
gress, seemed especially to fit him. In this he 
had the hearty backing of Tilden. But his well 
known physical infirmities undoubtedly stood in 
the way, and it certainly would have been ques¬ 
tionable whether he could have stood the strain 
of so laborious a task. But the lukewarmness 
of several Indiana Democratic leaders at this time 
was an interesting commentary on the fortunes 


20. Later Speeches, p. 215. 


396 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

of the independent voter when political plums are 
in question. The appointment was never tendered 
him. 

While preparing an article for the North 
American Review on “The Spoliation of the Public 
Lands”, which appeared in the August number, 
a letter came from President Cleveland stating 
that he wished to “break up the rings in New 
Mexico” and asking Julian if he would feel free to 
co-operate with him by accepting the office of Gov¬ 
ernor or Surveyor General of that Territory, and 
if so, which of the two. 21 This was a complete 
surprise. He had never thought of going to the 
frontier. His interest in land matters made the 
Surveyor Generalship seem the more attractive 
of the two. But would his health warrant his 
living in so high an altitude? Friends advised 
his trying it, and on reflection he did not feel at 
liberty to decline. His appointment as Surveyor 
General soon followed, and having leased his home 
for an indefinite period he set out, with his two 
children, for his new field of labor, in his sixty- 
eighth year. 


2. Julian Letters, May 10, 1885. 


CHAPTER XVI 


Neiv Mexico—Spanish and Mexican Land Grants 
—Makes Enemies—Opposition to Confirma¬ 
tion—Plan for Settling Titles—Speech in 
Behalf of Cleveland—Honte Again — 

Life of Giddings—Campaign of 
1892—Sonnet by Isaac Hoover 
Julian—Last Speech—Latest 
A c tivi ties—D ea th — 

Funeral 

The transition from the green fields and lux¬ 
urious forests of central Indiana to the sandy 
levels and rugged mountains of New Mexico was 
of course marked. Instead of opening his eyes 
each morning on the friendly maples outside his 
window Julian beheld Old Baldy with his crown 
of snow, and in the place of his familiar neigh¬ 
bors, were chiefly swarthy men wearing som¬ 
breros, equally swarthy women with shawls over 
their heads, and Indians in bright blankets. The 
Mexicans outnumbered the whites in the ratio 
of seven to one; but Santa Fe was at that time 
a flourishing military post, and this fact insured 
a contingent of pleasant society. Edmund G. Ross 
of Kansas, who had just been appointed Govern¬ 
or of New Mexico, had served with him in Con¬ 
gress, and was one of the seven Republican Sen¬ 
ators who had voted against the impeachment of 


(397) 


398 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

President Johnson, thus preventing the necessary 
two-thirds. Ross met him at the train on his 
arrival and many were the pleasant interviews 
between the two during the ensuing four years 
relating both to the past and the interests of 
the present. 

Julian made his home at St. Vincent’s Sanita¬ 
rium, where the Sisters were assiduous in kind 
attentions and where he enjoyed the society of 
several highly educated Catholic priests who were 
sojourning there in search of health. So cordial 
were his relations with one of these that dis¬ 
cussions on religous themes were ventured on 
with no diminution of friendship and regard. 
The air was almost intoxicating in its freshness 
and life-giving properties, and after a serious at¬ 
tack of fever such as afflicts many persons on 
going from the sea level to very high altitudes 
he began to improve in health and felt that the 
change was exactly what he needed. The work 
of his office, while new as to details, involved 
questions in which he had long been interested 
and with which he was thoroughly familiar. 

“When New Mexico was ceded to the United 
States the estimated area of Spanish and Mexican 
land grants was about twenty-four thousand 
square miles, or a little over fifteen million acres, 
being equal in extent to the land surface of Rhode 
Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Ver¬ 
mont. The Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo of 1848 
and the Law of Nations obliged the United States 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


399 


to respect the title of all these grants so far as 
found valid under the laws of Spain and Mexico; 
and to this end the act of Congress of July 22, 
1854, was passed, creating the office of Surveyor 
General for the Territory and making it his duty 
“to ascertain the origin, nature, character, and 
extent” of these claims and report his opinion 
thereon for the final action of Congress. This 
armed the Surveyor General with very large and 
responsible powers. He was required to pass 
upon the title of hundreds of thousands of acres, 
while no court in the Union had any authority 
to review his opinions, which were final and abso¬ 
lute, subject only to the ultimate supervision of 
Congress. This legislation would have proved 
wise and salutary if the Surveyors General had 
been first-rate lawyers, incorruptible men, and dili¬ 
gent in their work, and if Congress had promptly 
acted upon the cases reported for final decision. 
But the reverse of all this happened. Competent 
and fit men for so important a service would not 
accept it for the meager salary provided by law. 
Official life in an old Mexican province, and in 
the midst of an alien race, offered few attractions 
to men of ambition and force. Moreover, the 
men who could be picked up for the work were 
exposed to very great trials. Their duties pre¬ 
supposed judicial training and an adequate knowl¬ 
edge of both Spanish and American law; but with 
one or two exceptions they were not lawyers at 
all, while they were clothed with the power to 


400 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

adjudicate the title to vast areas of land. Of 
course the speculators who bought these grants 
at low rates from the grantees or their descend¬ 
ants, in the hope of large profits, comprehended 
the situation perfectly. They sought the good will 
of the Surveyor General because they desired an 
opinion favorable to their titles. In furtherance 
of this purpose they took note of his small salary 
and his natural love of thrift, while carefully 
taking his measure with the view of enlisting him 
in their service by controlling motives. It quite 
naturally happened that forged and fraudulent 
grants, covering very large tracts, were de¬ 
clared valid, and that the Surveyor General’s office 
very often became a mere bureau in the service 
of grant claimants and not the agent and repre¬ 
sentative of the government. Instead of constru¬ 
ing these claims strictly against the grantee and 
devolving upon him the burden of establishing 
his claim by affirmative proofs, the Surveyor Gen¬ 
eral acted upon the principle that Spanish and 
Mexican grants are to be presumed, and all doubts 
solved in the interest of the claimant. 

“But the wholesale plunder of the public domain 
was carried on with still more startling results 
through extravagant and fraudulent surveys. 
The grant owners did not exhaust their resources 
on the Surveyor General. Their dalliance with 
his deputies was even more shameful. At the 
date of these old grants the Spanish and Mexican 
governments attached little value to their lands. 
They were abundant and cheap, and granted in 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


401 


the most lavish and extravagant quantities. 
Leagues, not acres, were the units of measure¬ 
ment, and no actual survey was thought of when 
a grant was made. A rude sketch-map was drawn 
by some uneducated herdsman, giving a general 
outline of the tract, with some of the prominent 
natural objects indicating its boundaries. These 
boundaries were necessarily vague and indefinite, 
while the natural objects which marked them 
often became obliterated by time. When New 
Mexico became the property of the United States, 
and the owners of these grants asked the govern¬ 
ment for a preliminary survey in aid of their 
identification and for the purpose of asserting 
title, there was no law providing for the judicial 
determination of the true boundaries, and the 
deputy surveyor, who was under no particular 
obligations to ascertain them, was interested in 
the length of his lines, being paid so many dollars 
per mile. He was nominally an officer of the gov¬ 
ernment, but really a mere contractor and nat¬ 
urally in sympathy with the grant owner rather 
than the United States. The latter was never 
represented in these surveys, while the owner of 
the grant was always present, in person or by his 
agent, and directed the deputy surveyor in his 
work. His controlling purpose was to make the 
area of his grant as large as possible, and his 
interpretation of its terms invariably conformed 
to this idea.” 1 

1. North American Revieiv, July, 1887, Vol. 145, p. 17. 


26—24142 


402 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

These two paragraphs from an article by Julian 
in the North American Review for July, 1887, give 
an idea of the task that confronted him when, 
under instructions from the Land Office, he under¬ 
took to overhaul the work of his predecessors. 
Nearly all the men of property in the Territory 
were interested in land grants, and his investiga¬ 
tions and exposures, revealing the most astound¬ 
ing raids upon the public domain, naturally pro¬ 
voked furious assaults from those whose holdings 
were thus threatened. Charges were soon filed 
before the Public Land Committee of the Senate 
protesting against his confirmation. Under a rule 
of the Senate he was not allowed to know the 
names of his assailants, but a list of the charges 
was sent him, which he duly answered in their 
order. 2 

At the end of nine months Julian had accom¬ 
plished more work in the examination of Spanish 
grants than had been done by his predecessors in 
any five-year period. His first annual report, 
which was largely incorporated in that of the 
General Land Office, showed an aggregate of seven 
or eight million acres of the public lands which 
had been appropriated by private individuals 
under invalid grants or fraudulent surveys. 
These investigations largely involved Thomas B. 

2. “A formidable grist of charges has been filed against me in 
the land committee by persons whose names I am not allowed to 
know, and I am thus put on trial as if the question were an open 
and debatable one whether I am a rascal or an honest man.” Julian’s 
Journal, May 5, 1886. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


403 


Catron, 3 Stephen B. Elkins, 4 and other prominent 
men, and the fight against his confirmation which 
had not yet been made a matter of record, waxed 
hotter. However the day before the close of the 
Forty-ninth Congress, nearly two years after his 
first appointment, he was confirmed by a unani¬ 
mous vote of the Senate. It is but justice to state 
that this action was hastened by the efforts of 
General Benjamin Harrison, then a Senator from 
Indiana, to whom Julian wrote after fruitless 
appeals to Democratic friends. 

In the meantime, besides a great deal of read¬ 
ing he had written an article at the request of 
Allen Thorndike Rice which appeared in a volume 
of Lincoln Reminiscences , 5 one for the Cincinnati 
Graphic 6 on the Free Soil Campaigns of 1848 and 
1852, and the article on “Land Stealing in New 
Mexico” already mentioned. This last attracted 
wide attention and embodied perhaps the clearest 
exposition of the subject of Territorial land frauds 
that had ever been made. It called forth from 
Stephen W. Dorsey 7 an abusive reply in the Octo- 

3. Born Oct. 6, 1840, in Missouri. Elected 1J. S. Senator on the 
admission of New Mexico to statehood in 1912. Died May 15, 1921. 

4. Born Sept. 26, 1841, in Ohio. Secretary of War in Harrison’s 
administi'ation. U. S. Senator from West Virginia 1905 till his death 
in 1911. 

5. Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln, by Distinguished Men of 
His Time, North American Publishing Company, 1888. 

6. June 5, 1886. 

7. Born Feb. 28, 1842, in Vermont, enlisted in Union Army from 
Ohio, was elected U. S. Senator from Arkansas in 1873, managed Re¬ 
publican national campaigns in 1876 and 1880, was indicted for Star 
Route frauds in 1881, died Mar, 20, 1916. 


404 .INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

ber issue of the North American, to which Julian 
made a brief rejoinder in the December number. 

Julian was well aware that the people of New 
Mexico without regard to party were anxious for 
a final adjustment of all land grant claims, such 
adjustment being absolutely essential to the Ter¬ 
ritory’s further settlement and development. He 
knew too that the work he had been doing in the 
re-examination and re-survey of old land grants 
had been misrepresented by those who had prof¬ 
ited by fraudulent claims and surveys and made 
to appear as a hindrance to immigration and to 
the consequent advance towards Statehood. He 
sympathized entirely with the ambition of honest 
citizens in this matter, and he realized that the 
lack of interest on the part of Congress as man¬ 
ifested by its extreme slowness in disposing of 
grant cases abundantly proved that some other 
method of settlement must be found. But he 
stoutly objected to the plan that for some time 
had been urged providing for a Commission to 
settle such claims. Such a Commission had been 
in operation in California for thirty-six years with 
the result that a great many cases of controverted 
titles and surveys were still pending. This action, 
he insisted, would by no means expedite the end 
in view. Neither would their reference to the 
local courts, which were already overcrowded with 
business and were besides, more or less liable to 
be reached by sinister influences such as had al¬ 
ready been too much in evidence. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


405 


The plan proposed by Julian, which had the 
emphatic endorsement of Secretary Lamar, was 
to refer all land grant claims to the Secretary of 
the Interior for final adjudication. These cases 
were already on file in the General Land Office, 
including duly certified copies of the papers in 
each case, the evidence, both documentary and 
oral, together with the reports of the Surveyors 
General and the supplementary reports lately sub¬ 
mitted. They involved questions of law and fact 
with which the officials of that office were famil¬ 
iar. Julian believed that by this method two or 
three years would see all these matters settled and 
out of the way. In his second annual report he 
presented his plan with his customary distinctness 
and force, while he also urged it by means of 
editorials that appeared in various New Mexican 
papers and in letters to members of Congress. 
Although he did not succeed in securing the en¬ 
dorsement of his proposal by that body, he de¬ 
feated temporarily at least what he considered 
mischievous projects that had the energetic sup¬ 
port of grant claimants. 

After completing his third annual report as 
Surveyor General he prepared a speech in behalf 
of President Cleveland’s re-election, which he sent 
home to be read and published. This was the first 
presidential campaign since 1840 in which he had 
not taken an active part. He did not relish the 
idea of being shelved in an out-of-the-way quarter 
pending so important a contest, for his admira- 


406 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

tion of Cleveland had steadily grown. He espe¬ 
cially approved of his vetoes, notably that of the 
Dependent Pension Bill, and his demand for a 
reform of the tariff, which boldly translated that 
issue from the domain of mere policy and petti¬ 
fogging to the dignity and decency of manly 
discussion. 

Cleveland’s defeat seemed to Julian little short 
of a calamity, and to adjust himself so as to find 
some measure of relief in philosophizing about it 
was the work of time. It was reassuring to find 
that the tariff was not really responsible for the 
result. “He was defeated by local squabbles in 
New York City and the opposition of the sub¬ 
terranean and saloon element in the Democratic 
party which was drawn to the support of Harrison 
by the power of money. The election of the latter 
under such circumstances can not fail to have its 
compensations. The wholesale bribery of voters 
will lead to the correction of this evil by legisla¬ 
tion, 8 while the battle for tariff reform will be 
renewed and repeated in 1892. I ought to add, 
as a pleasant feature of this campaign, that the 
leading old Abolitionists who survive and the chil¬ 
dren of those who have died, were among the sup¬ 
porters of Cleveland. This was notably true in 
Massachusetts, where the Adams family, Col. Hig- 
ginson, Samuel E. Sewall, Dr. Bowditch, the sons 

8. For an account of Indiana election frauds, especially Dudley 
and the “blocks of five”, see Life of Walter Q. Gresham by Matilda 
Gresham, p. 604 et seq. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


407 


of Garrison and others were active and zealous 
in the cause;” 9 

During the campaign Julian had subscribed for 
the Boston Daily Herald, Harper’s Weekly, Puck, 
and the St. Louis Republic, which with the In¬ 
dianapolis Journal and Sentinel (both daily) and 
the New York Nation, his regular fare, kept him 
abreast of the political news. He was never idle, 
for aside from the necessary office work, includ¬ 
ing some sixty carefully prepared “opinions” in 
regard to old land grants, he was nearly always 
engaged on some literary task. His article enti¬ 
tled “A Search After Truth”, 10 appeared in the 
January (1888) number of the Unitarian Review, 
calling forth a number of letters from friends and 
some from strangers commending his frankness 
and sincerity and thanking him for having helped 
them over difficult places. In September follow¬ 
ing, “Webster and Blaine—Historic Justice” was 
printed in the Magazine of Western History, and 
in January, 1889, he decided to issue another vol¬ 
ume of speeches which appeared later in the same 
year, his daughter being entrusted with the task 
of arranging and editing. 11 An article entitled 
“The Redemption of a Territory” in the Magazine 
of Western History for July of this year he called 
his “last will and testament to New Mexico.” In 

9. Julian’s Journal, Nov. 25, J888. 

10. Referred to in Chap. I as an account of his investigations 
along religious and theological lines. 

11. Later Speeches, by George W. Julian. Carlon & Hollenbeck, 
1889. 


408 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

this article he insisted that the great need of the 
Territory was “a social inundation akin to that 
which rescued California from the mongrel races 
and variegated barbarism that threatened to sub¬ 
merge American civilization on the Pacific slope 
forty years ago.” The uncertainty of land titles, 
he asserted, was the chief reason for the halting 
progress of that important and picturesque re¬ 
gion, and he again urged his plan for the settle¬ 
ment of these titles. He concluded with an at¬ 
tractive picture of New Mexico regenerated and 
presently admitted to statehood. 

The completion of his fourth annual report was 
soon followed by President Harrison’s appoint¬ 
ment of his successor, and immediately after the 
transfer of the office he left Santa Fe, pleased with 
the good he believed he had accomplished or set 
on foot, full of thankfulness that his life had been 
prolonged so far beyond his expectations, and in¬ 
expressibly glad that he was going to spend his 
last days at home. 

During his incumbency of the Surveyor Gener¬ 
al’s office he had visited Indianapolis each May 
on a month’s leave of absence, so that he had kept 
in touch with local affairs and with friends, and 
he immediately plunged into reading more eager¬ 
ly than ever before, taking up in rapid succession 
Shepard’s Life of Martin Van Buren , Fiske’s 
Critical Period in American History , Tyler’s Life 
of Patrick Henry , Henry Adams’ Life of John 
Randolph and the sixth volume of Von Holst’s 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


409 


Constitutional History of the United States. 
Then came the four volumes of Garrison’s Life by 
his children, the Life of James G. Birney by his 
son, Emerson In Concord, the Journal Of Marie 
Bashkirtseff and Bart Ridgely by A. G. Riddle. 
This last, a story of pioneer life on the Western 
Reserve in northern Ohio, must have been under¬ 
taken as a sort of unconscious preparation for his 
next important task, the Life of Joshua R. 
Giddings. 

His seventy-third birthday was celebrated by a 
dinner to which he summoned a number of old 
friends from the ‘Burnt District/ and the summer 
of 1890 was spent chiefly at the Giddings home 
in Jefferson, Ohio, where he overhauled the vol¬ 
uminous correspondence of Giddings, conversed 
with his two surviving sons, read and re-read his 
Speeches, his Exiles of Florida, his History of the 
Rebellion, his Pacificus Papers, diaries and four 
or five large political scrap-books. He soon dis¬ 
covered that the undertaking would be more labor¬ 
ious than he had expected, and that patient study 
and careful thought would be required in bring¬ 
ing order out of such a chaos of material. On 
August 26th he began the first draft of the work, 12 
and for awhile was able to write two chapters per 
month, but this was presently found to be too 
taxing and he was obliged to proceed more delib¬ 
erately. He completed the work early in June, 

12. Life of Joshua R. Giddings, A. C. McClurg & Company, Chi¬ 
cago, 1892. 


410 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


1891, and devoted the summer to revising. Then 
came copying, awaiting the judgment of the pub¬ 
lisher, proof-reading, and it was not until April 
10, 1892, that the volume was actually in his hands. 
He had greatly enjoyed the task, which was a sort 
of labor of love. “I am sure it is what Father 
Giddings would have been glad to have me do, 
and that it would have been particularly well 
pleasing to his daughter Laura, who used to urge 
me to undertake it.” 13 A. C. McClurg & Co. of 
Chicago were the publishers, and it was printed 
by those masters of their craft, John Wilson and 
Son of Cambridge, Mass., so that the mechanical 
execution was well nigh perfect. Besides the 
several proof readings at home and at Cambridge, 
he had the valuable help of Edward L. Pierce, 
the biographer of Sumner, who was also most 
kind in supplying documents and facts. 

Pending the appearance of the Life of Giddings 
he was busy reading, and was also increasingly 
interested in obituary literature. A little before 
this he had jotted down on a fly leaf of his Con¬ 
gressional Dictionary the names of the survivors 
of the Thirty-first Congress (1849-1851), and as 
the newspapers announced each demise he drew 
his pencil sadly through the name. About this 
time his brother Isaac, living in Texas, sent him 
the following sonnet:— 

13. Julian’s Journal, May 8, 1892. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


411 


TO G. W. J. 

“Fear nothing:, and hope all things, as the right 
Alone may do securely.” 

Lowell. 

“Brother beloved and true!—nor mine alone— 
Brother of all true spirits everywhere! 

Long thy co-laborer in my humbler sphere, 

To me how well thy steadfast soul is known! 

Lo, ‘Truth is mighty’, and all yet must own— 
Save owl-like Prejudice and Ignorance, 

Or else discomfited Malevolence— 

The brave and martyr spirit thou hast shown. 
Thou livest to see the dawning of that day; 

After the struggle of thy early life, 

Thy manhood’s sorrows, conflicts, toils and strife— 
In service of thy fellow men grown gray— 

Thou sharest the rest and peace so nobly won, 
Serenely gazing on thy westering sun.” 14 

The Life of Giddings was fully and handsomely 
reviewed in all the leading newspapers of the 
country. 15 

14. Julian’s Journal, Nov. 21, 1891. 

15. One of the best, although by no means the most flattering, 

notices was that of the New York Nation, which said among other 
things:—“Now that Mr. Julian has written the Life of his father-in- 
law we may congratulate ourselves that he waited till he was seventy- 
five years old ; for it so happens that there is a ripeness in his judg¬ 
ment which he could not have had before, and that he sees the events 
and persons of his scene in a perspective which assigns them their 
relative importance. . . . It is written with a double modesty— 

that proper to the author and that proper to the man of whom he 
writes. His nearness to Giddings as his son-in-law, and his own part 
in the scenes which he describes would have excused occasional lapses 
into a more subjective manner, but he has chosen to efface himself as 
far as possible.” 


412 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Julian’s speech in the campaign of 1892 on “The 
Civil Service Promises and Performances of Gen¬ 
eral Harrison” was widely circulated in news¬ 
papers, and the National Democratic Committee 
published a pamphlet edition of two hundred thou¬ 
sand copies. 16 It was as thorough, logical 
and convincing as any effort of his life, but his 
physical strength did not warrant further partici¬ 
pation on the stump. He rejoiced heartily in 
Cleveland’s success, and predicted that the Repub¬ 
licans were permanently snowed under “unless 
Democratic stupidity should come to their res¬ 
cue”, 17 a prediction that was literally fulfilled four 
years later. 

A brief visit to the World’s Columbian Exposi¬ 
tion in Chicago the following year called forth a 
sigh that he had not strength to remain longer. 
Although he was obliged to husband his physical 
resources increasingly from this time till the end 
of his life he by no means abandoned active par¬ 
ticipation in such enterprises as he was able for. 
Annual visits to Jefferson, Ohio, or to some 
northern lake resort, addresses before clubs in 
and about Indianapolis, book reviews for the 
Chicago Dial, the New York Nation and other pe- 

16. Julian’s Journal, Nov. 15, 1892. Of this speech the Spring- 
field Republican said on Oct. 23, 1892: “Mr. Julian has been in the 
forefront of reforms, and has sacrificed his personal interests in keep¬ 
ing there. He is not one whose opinions are to be scouted. Mr. 
Julian’s review of President Harrison’s record as to civil service re¬ 
form is not so rigorously cold as that of W. D. Foulke, recently de¬ 
livered in Boston, but it is even more conclusive.” 

17. Julian’s Journal, Nov. 15, 1892. 










































































































Julian at the age of seventy-seven. 

H. Morse. 


Bust made by Sidney 








GEORGE W. JULIAN 


413 


riodicals, articles for the Century, the North 
American, and the Arena, trips to the Old Settlers’ 
reunions in Centerville and Yearly Meetings in 
Richmond, and constant reading of new books, 
especially historical works, occupied his time 
pleasantly and profitably. The last four winters 
he had to wrestle with grippe or pneumonia, each 
attack reducing his vitality, but he manifested a 
certain pugnacity in facing distressing conditions 
that robbed them of monotony at least and lent 
a sort of color to life. His birthday was always 
the occasion for a general neighborhood rally, for 
he always received informally on May 5th, the 
weather usually conspiring with his friends to 
render the affair pleasantly memorable. The fact 
that men like James Ford Rhodes, James A. 
Woodburn, Theodore Clark Smith and other stu¬ 
dents came to talk over with him the past was 
a source of satisfaction, and sundry visits, such 
as those from Edward L. Pierce of Massachusetts, 
the Rev. John G. Fee and wife of Kentucky, and 
his brother Isaac from Texas, were soul restor¬ 
ing. The re-reading of Dante (1897) following 
the perusal of Professor William T. Harris’ Spirit¬ 
ual Sense of Dante's Divine Comedy, and also of 
Milton’s works, was a genuine delight, recalling 
the eagerness of youthful quests in the domain of 
letters, but with the added richness of mature 
reflection. His zest for the finer things of life 
never diminished. 

Of course the presidential campaign of 1896 


414 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

was of absorbing interest, and he was an enthu¬ 
siastic attendant at one of the sessions of the con¬ 
vention of Gold Standard Democrats that met in 
Indianapolis and nominated Palmer and Buckner 
for President and Vice-President. A sound money 
man from the beginning, he regarded the crisis 
as a serious one, and longed to enter actively into 
the struggle. He prepared a speech which was 
given before the Sound Money League at Indi¬ 
anapolis on October 16th, but he was not able to 
complete its delivery and the concluding para¬ 
graphs were read by another. It was a careful 
review of the financial situation, in which he 
traced the various monetary disorders of the coun¬ 
try to the legal tender acts of 1862 and 1863. 
“These acts”, said he, “gave birth to the delusion 
that under the power to coin money and regulate 
the value thereof, Congress could create money, 
although the power to do this belongs exclusive¬ 
ly to the Almighty. The constitutionality of these 
acts was disputed I believe by all the Democrats 
in Congress and by the ablest Republican mem¬ 
bers, while outside of Congress the statesmen and 
financiers who were most competent to give an 
opinion generally held the same views. The plea 
of military necessity was by no means universally 
accepted, and the better opinion was then as it is 
today that through the legitimate agencies of tax¬ 
ation and loans the rebellion could have been sup¬ 
pressed and at an immense saving of money.” 18 


18. In this connection an entry in his Journal of December 20, 
1891, is significant: “Have just read the volume of “Essays” by Henry 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


415 


He reviewed the decision of the Supreme Court 
speaking through Chief Justice Chase on Novem¬ 
ber 27, 1869, to the effect that Congress had no 
power under the Constitution to make treasury 
notes a legal tender in the payment of debts con¬ 
tracted before the passage of the act making such 
notes a legal tender, told of the unpopularity of 
this decision and of its reversal by a court es¬ 
pecially packed for the purpose, “thus making the 
Supreme Court of the United States the foot-ball 
of party polities”, and of the results of the latter 
action, culminating in “the present Democratic- 
Populist craze with Bryan at its head”. He then 
took up the tariff question showing how both 
parties had trifled with it until Cleveland stripped 
it of its verbiage and, counter to the advice of 
party friends, brought it before the people for 
an intelligent decision. “They warned him that 
it would defeat his re-election the following year, 
and he had the best of reasons for believing them, 
but he had deliberately formed his opinion on 
the question of duty irrespective of any personal 
consequences, and his message duly appeared. It 
did defeat his re-election, after a nomination by 

Adams and his brother Charles Francis. The chapters on the New 
York Gold Conspiracy and the Legal Tender Act possess a fascinating 
interest. The picture given of the financial ignorance of the men who 
passed that Act is startling, and I should dislike exceedingly to have 
such a personal overhauling as is given to Thaddeus Stevens and E. 
G. Spaulding. I am ashamed to confess that I mustered in this com¬ 
pany, and that at that time I could honestly plead ignoramus. The 
wonder is that the nation was able to pull through, for the task of 
crushing the rebellion must have been enormously aggravated by this 
financial blundering.” 


416 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

acclamation, but in 1892 the tidal wave which his 
message had created gave him a triumphant vic¬ 
tory on the issue as he had defined it. It was not 
his fault that ‘the livery of Democratic reform' 
was afterwards ‘stolen and worn in the service 
of Republican protection’. It was not his fault 
that men in his own party betrayed the cause 
and brought sorrow and humiliation to its 
friends. ... He stood magnificently by his 
colors while the followers of Mr. Bryan, anxious 
to placate Mr. Teller and the silver Republicans, 
have omitted the word ‘only’ from the tariff reso¬ 
lution of the Chicago platform and thus remanded 
the question to the policy of equivocation and 
evasion against which Mr. Cleveland had success¬ 
fully battled.” He praised Cleveland’s record on 
the Civil Service, paternalism, centralization and 
State Rights, and showed that he had been inflex¬ 
ibly true to the principles of genuine Democracy. 
He confessed himself unable to account for the 
present attitude of the Democratic party. It was 
not a case of sudden conversion but of sudden 
degeneration. And he closed with a tribute to 
the bolters of the world, whether in church or 
state. “They have been the path-finders of truth 
and the torch-bearers of progress and reform. 
No votes are ever lost but those which are cast 
for pernicious principles and for candidates who 
are unworthy to receive them; and I commend this 
saving truth to the misguided men who have 
turned their backs upon the timehonored doctrines 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


417 


of Democracy and are now following after strange 
gods.” 19 

Many letters came from friends commending 
this his last public speech, among the most prized 
being one from Grover Cleveland, written as was 
his custom with his own hand, in which he said: 
”1 cannot but believe that such expositions of true 
democracy will have the effect of calling vast 
multitudes of our party back to the support of 
genuine democratic principles.” 20 

In the Arena for February, 1898, appeared a 
further analysis of the financial situation from 
Julian’s pen under the title, “Our party Leaders 
and the Finances”, 21 followed by a reply by John 
Clark Ridpath. Julian showed the equally vul¬ 
nerable records of the two leading parties on the 
money question and commended the plan of a non¬ 
partisan monetary conference which should devise 
and recommend to Congress a working theory of 
reform. Some of the letters that came to him 
in the weeks immediately following were curiosi- 

19. The Indianapolis Nezvs, Oct. 16, 1896. On Oct. 20th Julian 

recorded in his Journal : “Bryan’s campaign is unprecedented in the 
numbers who flock to hear him and in the unbounded enthusiasm of 
his followers. . . . If he can succeed, with all the business interests 

of the country against him solidly, and nearly all the newspapers, and 
all the colleges and educational influences, it can only be accounted for 
on the theory of a tremendous retrogression in the work of civiliza¬ 
tion, which would be at war with the philosophy of evolution and 
irreconcilable with the belief in a Divine Providence. I am therefore 
perfectly convinced that no such calamity is in store for us.” 

20. Julian Letters; dated Washington, Oct. 23, 1896. 

21. This had been sent to the Arena six months before (Julian’s 
Journal, July 24, 1897), the tardiness of its appearance not being ex¬ 
plained. 


27—24142 


418 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

ties. “One old anti-slavery friend in Fountain 
City writes me that he would not have been more 
astounded and grieved if Garrison and Phillips 
and Lucretia Mott had undertaken to re-establish 
slavery after its overthrow. This is a specimen 
letter. It seems that I am never to get through 
shocking and grieving old friends. But as to my 
article, I am entirely satisfied with its soundness, 
and these letters convince me that I acted wisely 
in publishing it.” 22 

Another subject that appealed to him quite as 
strongly as currency reform during the closing 
months of his life was the policy of Imperialism. 
He deplored the Spanish-American War, but 
earnestly hoped that our country would emerge 
from it without being drawn into “the madness of 
territorial expansion and national land-stealing.” 23 
He thought that the policy of the government in 
seeking extension of authority over tropical is¬ 
lands by conquest involved more serious con¬ 
sequences than did the problem of our Civil 
War. 24 He began the preparation of a paper on 
“The Perplexities of Imperialism”, but before its 
completion the press so teemed with articles along 
this line that he laid it aside. His last finished 
task was a review of George C. Gorham’s Life 
of Edwin M. Stanton which appeared in the Dial 
of July 16, 1899. That having been dispatched, 
he at once took up the Life of Tliaddeus Stevens 


22. Julian’s Journal, Mar. 4, 1898. 

23. Ibid. July 19, 1898. 

24. Ibid. Feb. 25, 1899. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


419 


by Samuel McCall on a review of which he was 
engaged when death intervened. His book re¬ 
views were not mere appreciations or summaries 
of the volumes considered, couched in excellent 
English. They were critical examinations, pos¬ 
sessing unique importance and value from the 
fact that he had been closely associated with the 
men and events considered. 25 

Julian was about the house as usual on Wednes¬ 
day, July 5th, although very feeble. He even took 
up his papers preparatory to dictating to his 
amanuensis, but was persuaded to lay them aside. 
He did not leave his bed the next day, and on 
Friday, July 7, 1899, at a few minutes before 
eleven o’clock in the forenoon he peacefully closed 
his eyes, his age being eighty-two years, two 
months and two days. 

After a long, busy and fruitful day the sunset 
was unclouded. One of the saddest spectacles, 
he thought, was that of an aged person whose 
work was finished, lingering on and longing for 
release. In 1890 his old Free Soil associate, 

25. The following paragraph from his Journal under date of May 
6, 1897, shows his attitude towards such work: “I have been reading 
carefully a book entitled The Middle Period of American History by 
Prof. John W. Burgess of Columbia University, and in an article which 
has just appeared in the Dial I have sharply criticised its aspersions 
of the anti-slavery cause and its leaders, and its inexcusable mis-state¬ 
ments of fact. This sort of work seems to have fallen to my lot of 
late years, as shown in my defense of Charles Osborn as an anti¬ 
slavery pioneer, my paper on Thomas Morris, another neglected leader, 
and my defense of Charles Sumner against the wanton attacks of Ham¬ 
ilton Fish, J. C. Bancroft-Davis, and Adam Badeau. History must not 
be allowed to bear false witness respecting the great conflict, and to 
this end no vigilance should be spared in guarding the truth.” 


420 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Stephen S. Harding, then eighty-three and blind 
for years, wrote him a pathetic letter which closed 
as follows: “When you hear of my demise, which 
will be before long, strike hands with some old 
friend and thank God it is all over!” 26 So it was 
cause for thankfulness that in his own case the 
summons came in the midst of activity and con¬ 
genial surroundings, when life, though complete, 
had not lost its relish. 

At the simple funeral services three days later 
Frederick E. Dewhurst, the pastor of Plymouth 
Church and a dear friend, spoke fittingly of his 
life and character, and said in part: 

“Mr. Julian belonged to a type which has a 
splendid heritage in the history of our human 
race. It is a type which reaches at least as far 
into the past as the line of Hebrew prophets, those 
men who by better right should have been named 
the statesmen of God. The history of no nation 
can be written which does not take due account 
of this stern and incorruptible type. Its is the 
idealism which does not brook compromise, the 
idealism which does not make a comfortable 
yoke-fellow for that other and necessary type of 
statesmanship, the opportunist. The idealism of 
which Mr. Julian has been the consistent and un¬ 
bending example is that which men call impracti¬ 
cable; but when we get far enough away from 
that age to see it in perspective do we not see that 

26. Dated “Milan, Ind., Sept. 14, 1890.” Julian Letters. Hard¬ 
ing’s death occurred Feb. 12, 1891. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


421 


it is these men who if they could not open the 
door that looked out upon the street, have opened 
the window in the dome which gives us the view 
of the pole-star by which we shape our course? 
It is the opportunist who at a happy crisis in af¬ 
fairs takes the pen in hand and writes the word 
that binds or looses. It is the idealist with his 
stern sense of radical and absolute justice who 
creates the language which it is possible for the 
pen to write. The idealist is not always right: 
far from it. No finite and fallible human being 
is. But the idealists of the type to which the 
Isaiahs, the Cromwells and Miltons, the Garrisons 
and Sumners and Julians belonged spelled the 
RIGHT in blazing letters of light, every one of 
which was a capital; and the word was so large 
and so luminous that it could not always fit the 
immediate occasion, the temporary possibility. 
But after all, in the great verdicts of history, who 
are life’s victors? Are they not they 

‘Who have held to their faith unseduced by the 
prize that the world holds on high; 

And have dared for a high cause to suffer, resist, 
fight,—if need be to die?” 27 


27. Indianapolis News, July 10, 1899. 



CHAPTER XVII 

Newspaper Estimates—Personal Traits 

Of the hundreds of notices of Julian’s death 
that appeared in the newspapers immediately fol¬ 
lowing the event the great majority bore headings 
indicating his anti-slavery career, such as “Noted 
Abolitionist Dead”, “Julian the Abolitionist 
Gone”, “Death of Famous Abolitionist”, thus con¬ 
firming in a way his own view that the signifi¬ 
cance of his life lay in his warfare against the 
institution of slavery. Reference was made in 
more than one of these notices to the fact that had 
his death occurred a half century earlier it would 
have occasioned far more comment, as he had long 
survived almost every one of the contemporaries 
of his middle life as well as the settlement of the 
question to which he had devoted those years 
which are sometimes mistakenly called a man’s 
best years. 1 

Editorial comments following the obituary no¬ 
tices were uniformly favorable, even the Indian¬ 
apolis Journal, Governor Morton’s former organ, 

1. An incident connected with his last “farewell visit” to the old 
Burnt District a few years before his death is worth relating here. In 
one of his former political strongholds a farmer joined the group of 
which he was the center and on learning who he was exclaimed, “Why, 
I thought you had died long ago!” In reporting this, Julian said it 
almost seemed as if the man’s voice bore a tone of disappointment, 
making him feel for the moment that perhaps it was an impertinence 
to have lingered thus beyond reasonable expectations. 


(422) 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


423 


crediting him with statesmanship and with hav¬ 
ing been one of the founders and leaders of the 
Republican party, and concluding: 

“He was an untiring worker, and though en¬ 
tirely lacking in brilliant or attractive qualities, 
he was a man of decided ability and made his 
mark during a turbulent and formative period of 
our history. He was a forcible speaker and a 
clear and strong writer on political topics. ,,2 

It is a little significant that the Republican 
press uniformly emphasized his anti-slavery ef¬ 
forts, while the Democratic organs laid greater 
stress on his labors in connection with Public 
Land matters. The Indianapolis Sentinel de¬ 
clared : 

“If a time shall come when a discriminating 
history of the past half century in Indiana shall 
be written it will probably pronounce George W. 
Julian the foremost statesman that Indiana has 
produced. This will appear an untenable propo¬ 
sition to those who are accustomed to measure 
statesmanship by political success, but when his 
life work is studied and the success he attained in 
securing the adoption of measures and principles 
is considered, no Indiana man has such a record. 
He was intensely radical, so much so that he never 
seemed to count the cost of any course he took, 
but appeared to contemporaries wholly destitute 
of political sagacity. Yet his judgments as to the 
conclusions the people would ultimately reach 


2. Indianapolis Journal, July 8, 1899. 


424 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

were almost unerring in so many important cases 
that he seems, on looking back, like a political 
prophet. He was so independent that the politi¬ 
cal success he attained was almost marvellous. 
He took positions on the various political ques¬ 
tions—usually extreme positions—and adhered to 
them with a firmness that knew no compromise 
for political advantage, no conciliation to personal 
prejudices even of his friends, no bending to the 
decrees of party. . . . His greatest achieve¬ 

ments were in establishing our land policy. He 
helped frame the original Homestead bill of 1862, 
and reported amendments and extensions of it in 
1864 and 1866. ... He also made the fight 

for the disposal of mineral lands in fee, which has 
since been adopted. Obscured for a period by 
political reverses, he can never lose his standing 
among the great men of his native State, and 
time will give to him the justice that was denied 
him in his life.” 3 

The estimate of the Indianapolis News was as 
follows: 

“In the death of George W. Julian Indiana loses 
one of its most picturesque characters and society 
one of its finest forces. His great and valuable 
work however was done in an era that belongs 
to history—in the anti-slavery agitation and the 
days of the war. Intensely radical, he was nat¬ 
urally no politician, and hence, as a result of 
temperament perhaps, he was deprived of a large 


3. Indianapolis Sentinel, July 8, 1899. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 




425 

measure of usefulness that his lofty character and 
his splendid intellect should have made for him. 
His prescience was remarkable, his conclusions 
unerring. 

“Julian and Morton were early enemies and re¬ 
mained consistently so to the end. History look¬ 
ing at the lives of them both will probably say 
that Morton was more practical, and that Julian 
showed the finer ideal, the purer purpose, the 
cleaner conception. Mr. Julian, with his fine na¬ 
ture, impatient of obstruction, conscious of the 
loftiness of his desires, dwelling ever in scorn of 
all that was base or time-serving, found it difficult 
to work as all must work who get things done in 
this world. Ever far ahead of his day, working 
with indefatigable ardor, he yet had not learned 
‘to labor and to wait’. How much indeed men like 
him, who constitute the driving force of any great 
movement, contribute to that movement, cannot 
be said. There is a time at every step of advance 
when there must come a positive propulsion, or 
there will be no advance. Mr. Julian furnished 
this at every stage of his career; and how much 
he contributed to the sum of things can only be 
conjectured. 

“He must be classed among doctrinaires rather 
than statesmen. But by his eloquence of speech 
and his forceful writing he served powerfully the 
causes he championed. The strongest impression 
Mr. Julian has left is, perhaps, as an example for 
the austere beauty and purity of his personal 


28—24142 


426 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


character, and for uncompromising loyalty to 
truth as he saw it.” 4 

The St. Louis Globe-Democrat called Julian 
“the last of Freedom’s Old Guard” and cited the 
case of Indiana with its large population from 
Virginia, Kentucky and other slave States as an 
excellent illustration of the power of tradition, 
association and heredity in political and social 
life. “Necessarily the West had far more of this 
element than any of the Eastern States. The ob¬ 
stacles which freedom encountered here were 
much greater than those in New England and its 
near neighbors. The credit due to the workers 
in the West who brought their States around to 
the cause of human enfranchisement was higher 
than that which their brethren in the Northeast 
could legitimately claim. One of the ablest and 
most active of these champions of freedom, and 
the last survivor of all of them, who won promi¬ 
nence was George W. Julian.” 5 

“The men of his class and type are nearly all 
gone,” said the Denver Republican. “They be¬ 
longed to an era which has passed into history, 
and they are going with it. Julian will not oc¬ 
cupy so conspicuous a place in the history of that 
time as some others who played their parts when 
he played his, but he will be remembered, and ft 
will be said of him that all his work was well and 
honorably done.” 6 


4. Indianapolis News, July 8, 1899. 

5. Julian Scrap Boole. Date not given. 

6. Ibid. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


427 


The Springfield Republican said that he was 
“always doing in Congress wise and Quixotic 
things, such as pushing forward woman suffrage, 
which he had advocated since 1847 . . . and 

which in 1868 he proposed to incorporate into an 
amendment to the Constitution. He was strenu¬ 
ous in reconstruction times for the full citizen’s 
rights for the negro; he furthered the homestead 
policy and was against the vast grants to corpora¬ 
tions which were made to the privation of the 
people. In his later years he grew by no means 
more content with the decadent party which had 
had the devotion of his prime. . . . Julian 

was a vigorous and effective servant of the people 
in his day, and if he were somewhat bitter in his 
later years there could be small wonder at that 
when one considers that everything is going just 
as he would not have it go,—to the interest of the 
few and the injury of the many.” 7 

The Boston Herald after a brief review of his 
political career, referred to Political Recollections 
and the Life of Giddings, and continued: 

“Mr. Julian proved himself to be as clever with 
his pen in these productions as he had been ef¬ 
fective in speech; but his books brought him lit¬ 
tle of the income that he needed in his advanced 
age. He wrote some for the magazines also, the 
Century having him on its list of contributors. 
He sent occasional articles to the newspapers, one 
of which he furnished to the Herald some three 


7. Springfield Republican, July 8, 1899. 


428 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


years ago. He was an able, an earnest, and a 
sincere man, who had deserved well of his fellow 
citizens and of his country; but his life had been 
largely in politics, and he who relies upon poli¬ 
ticians for gratitude can only expect to be disap¬ 
pointed. The men who bear the heat and the 
burden of the day of small things in parties are 
not often those who reap the rewards that come 
in the time of great ones.” 8 

Unity , the organ of the more radical wing of 
Unitarianism, whose editor, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, 
was a personal friend, ranked him with Trumbull, 
Chase, and Sumner, and continued: “In 1872 
Lydia Maria Child, one of the scribes of the anti¬ 
slavery movement, wrote his life and compiled his 
speeches, for then the life seemed rounded out. 
But Mr. Julian stayed on earth twenty-seven 
years longer to show what vitality there is in con¬ 
science, what endurance there is in an active 
mind.” 9 

Of course the Woman's Journal , edited by Lucy 
Stone and her husband, Henry B. Blackwell, gave 
him due meed of praise for having sought to in¬ 
corporate in the national scheme of reconstruc¬ 
tion a Sixteenth Constitutional amendment abol¬ 
ishing sex as a qualification for voting. “But by 
the few surviving pioneer suffragists” said the 
Journal, “he is best beloved for his much earlier 
championship of woman’s equality. Seventeen 

8. Boston Herald, July 10, 1899. 

9. Unity, July 20, 1899. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


429 


years before, in 1852, he took an active part in 
woman's rights conventions in Indiana and Ohio. 
. . . We shall never forget his earnest and im¬ 

pressive presence in those early meetings/’ 10 

The New York Nation called Julian “perhaps 
the most conspicuous product of that Quaker 
migration from the South, particularly from 
North Carolina, which was caused by aversion to 
slavery, and which had for one result the implant¬ 
ing of anti-slavery convictions in the new-made 
States of Ohio and Indiana. We are in danger 
of overlooking the honorable singularity of 
such a political career as this, partly because a 
long life cannot be grasped as a whole by the com¬ 
mon memory, but partly because of the failure of 
large numbers of leading Republicans of the 
storm-and-stress period not only to withstand, but 
to recognize and confess, that corrupt tendency 
which has brought us to our present state of well- 
nigh hopeless passivity and impotence.” 11 

The foregoing excerpts fairly epitomize the 
verdict pronounced by the newspaper press of the 
country on the veteran who had just laid down 
life’s burden. What he himself would have 
thought could he have read his own obituaries and 
the various tributes, one can only conjecture. It 
is probable that he would not have been greatly 
surprised and certainly not at all disturbed even 
by the charge of “doctrinaire”. He knew him- 

10. The Woman's Journal, July 15, 1899. 

11. The Nation, July 27, 1899. 


430 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

self as well perhaps as it is given to mortal man 
to know that elusive being with whom he is most 
closely associated; and if, as the day darkened 
around him, there lingered any recollection of 
suffering and pain such as all adventurers after 
truth and freedom are called upon to bear, it was 
undoubtedly mingled with the happy conscious¬ 
ness of having won that which he valued most. 


Life was truly a boon to Julian, increasing in 
value with the years. It was moreover an un¬ 
speakably momentous fact, an experience not to 
be heedlessly passed through, but a privilege into 
which should be crowded as much of useful 
achievement as possible. It was not mere exist¬ 
ence that he loved. As has abundantly appeared 
in the foregoing pages, activity was his delight, 
and he fretted under enforced idleness. Although 
physical infirmities necessitated his lying down 
four hours each day for the last twenty years at 
least, he always had a book or a magazine beside 
him with his glasses. He dreaded unspeakably 
the loss of his faculties, and the words of John 
Quincy Adams about his “shaking hand, darken¬ 
ing eye and drowsy brain” possessed a fearful 
significance for him. The fact that some of the 
members of his family had in extreme age been 
afflicted with what is known as softening of the 
brain brought home to him the possibility of a 
similar fate, and with characteristic energy he set 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


431 


himself to ward it off. He was convinced that 
he could at least hinder the ravages of time by 
keeping his mind employed, and he was a severe 
task-master to himself. It is probable that the 
final catastrophe was precipitated by the continu¬ 
ous strain, during excessively warm weather, oc¬ 
casioned in the preparation of a book review. 
This meant double work for the brain grown slug¬ 
gish with age and supported by an increasingly 
feeble body. 

It was not a part of his philosophy to ignore 
evil and unfortunate circumstances, but rather 
to face them in all their might and ugliness and 
then set to work to overcome them. Among the 
lines that he repeated oftenest were these from 
Browning’s Easter Day : 

“And so I live, you see, 

Go through the world, try, prove, reject, 
Prefer, still striving to effect 
My warfare; happy that I can 
Be crossed and thwarted as a man, 

Not left in God’s contempt apart, 

With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart, 
Tame in earth’s paddock as her prize.” 

When attacked by grippe or other malady that 
necessitated his keeping his room upstairs he 
would do so with rather bad grace at first, for he 
delighted to be down among his books, where he 
could receive callers and witness the passing 
show; but presently, having become adjusted to 
the situation, he would set himself to pointing out 


432 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

its pleasant features—the east and south win¬ 
dows, the open fire, the pictures on the walls, pic¬ 
tures of the Capitol, of the members of the 
Thirty-ninth Congress in a group, of Horace 
Greeley, John Bright, Gerrit Smith and others. 
Sunshine and birds were perpetual delights, and 
the fleeting glory of the dawn was worth a great 
effort to behold. The branches of the maples as 
they swayed to and fro outside his window spoke 
a language sweet and quieting, and the sight of a 
storm fascinated him. The twilight hour was a pre¬ 
cious time: he liked then to have a loved one be¬ 
side him, by the fire in winter and under the trees 
in summer, and to sit in silent meditation, or re¬ 
peating poetry, or talking of the day’s doings or 
the morrow’s plans. Always a great walker, he 
prided himself on his three miles a day at eighty, 
and his figure was a familiar one in all parts of 
the village. But although “the old perfections of 
the earth” appealed to him more and more with 
the years, they never took the place of human so¬ 
ciety. “What should we do without people?” he 
murmured, gazing out at neighbors passing by on 
the day before he laid him down for the last time. 
Unfailing courage, and ever fresh enjoyment of 
nature and of human relationships were among 
his most pronounced characteristics. Children 
made friends with him at once, and he possessed 
the art of entertaining them without effort. He 
had a fund of bear stories, and there was a favor¬ 
ite tale about Captain Scott and the Coons. Gen- 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


433 


eral Putnam and the Wolf was another thrilling 
recital, in which there was more or less of dra¬ 
matic accessory. 

Whatever he did he put his whole heart into. 
He worked impetuously and indefatigably, and he 
played as he worked. In his youth he had en¬ 
joyed the game of town ball, but he probably 
never witnessed a game of modern baseball. Cro¬ 
quet was a favorite in later life, when more vio¬ 
lent activity would have been undesirable. He 
liked whist and euchre, dominoes and checkers. 
But it was largely the zest and abandon with 
which he entered into such sports that made him 
an interesting partner. This it was that ren¬ 
dered his society always engaging,—the enthusi¬ 
asm he felt for people and things, coupled with 
an unconscious air of wisdom, as of one having 
an unusually wide horizon. 

His opinions were uttered with a freedom and 
spontaneity that were refreshing, and yet with a 
seriousness and tone of authority that were the 
fruit of much thought and long experience. It 
was his friend, Miss Catherine Merrill, for fifty 
years a teacher of English, who said that he spoke 
in such finished sentences that they had the qual¬ 
ity of literature. 

In all his talk there was a deep religious vein, 
a spirit of faith in the Eternal Goodness, that was 
tonic in effect. But he was utterly undogmatic. 
He believed in the simple humanity of Jesus and 
in the renovating and ever uplifting power of His 


434 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

life and teachings in raising the world to higher 
and higher conditions. The life and sufferings of 
the Nazarene were habitually in his thoughts, and 
he was often heard repeating to himself as he lay 
on his couch those words of Lydia Maria Child be¬ 
ginning, “I thank Thee, 0 Heavenly Father, for 
all the messengers Thou hast sent to man; but 
above all I thank Thee for this, Thy beloved son!” 
The story of the crucifixion always brought tears 
to his eyes, and he thought the most touching and 
terrible passage in all literature was the sentence, 
“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” 

Reverence was a quality always manifest,— 
reverence for God, and Truth, and Duty. He was 
a hero worshipper too, and certain names were 
always spoken with tender regard and a glow of 
pride. Among these were Plato, Dante, Bruno, 
Milton, Mazzini. He had numerous idols among 
the men of later times too. Over the mantel in 
his library hung portraits of William Ellery 
Channing, Theodore Parker and Ralph Waldo 
Emerson,—saint, reformer and seer. It was not 
his privilege to have known John Quincy Adams, 
the latter having died the year before he entered 
Congress, but Adams’ character impressed him as 
few others did, and he was almost as familiar 
with his career as with the alphabet. 

Deference to age was a marked trait. The 
loneliness of old persons, even in the most favored 
surroundings, appealed to him, and the sight of 
age coupled with want caused him a pang equalled 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


435 


only by the spectacle of a mind in ruins. He felt 
keen sympathy with those in sorrow, and knew 
intuitively how best to express it. It was his 
custom to take note of anniversaries. April 19th, 
June 17th, and such dates were always observed 
in some way, and the attention of young people 
was directed to them. 

In his youth he had committed to memory a 
great deal of poetry, and this he retained in large 
measure to the last, while he regularly added to 
his stock from the good things that appeared from 
time to time. As he lay awake at night he would 
repeat page after page from Paradise Lost, and 
occasionally some fragment that he had learned 
fifty or sixty years before but had long since for¬ 
gotten would come floating into his consciousness 
to be greeted with manifest joy. Next to Shake¬ 
speare and Milton among English speaking poets 
he loved Tennyson and Burns, but some fifteen 
years before his death he became interested in the 
poetry of Robert Browning, from which he de¬ 
rived great pleasure. There was a certain 
strength, a tone of courage and cheer, about much 
of Browning’s verse that touched in him a re¬ 
sponsive chord. 

He had a peculiar regard for books. They 
seemed almost to possess sentient life and he 
could not endure to see them tumbled about or 
handled carelessly. He took particular delight in 
words, and the dictionary was consulted every 
day, up to the last two or three days of his life. 


436 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

He was fond of the theatre, although his early 
advantages in this line were limited. Joseph 
Jefferson as Rip Van Winkle he saw annually if 
possible, and he liked to repeat Rip’s farewell to 
Gretchen as he departed into the storm, and also 
his beseeching words to his new-made friends in 
the mountains, “Boys, do not leave me!” The 
elder Sothern as Lord Dundreary, the Booths, 
father and son, and Fanny Kemble were favor¬ 
ites; likewise Edwin Forrest as King Lear, and 
he undoubtedly pitied the man or woman who had 
not heard Forrest’s tones when he called on the 
dead Cordelia to “Stay a little!” To the end of 
his life he spoke with delight of Jenny Lind, whom 
he first heard in Boston in 1850, and of Christine 
Nilsson. He had not what is called a cultivated 
ear, his taste being for simple things, especially 
the Scotch ballads. His voice was melodious and 
he sang almost every day, sometimes a hymn that 
he had learned in childhood, but more often one 
of Burns’ songs, “The Banks o’ Doon”, “Auld 
Lang Syne”, or “Highland Mary”; and his voice 
rang out with peculiar fervor to the thrilling 
strains of “Bannockburn”. 

His sense of humor was of the keenest, and his 
laugh was hearty and contagious. As he ad¬ 
vanced in years people became more and more at¬ 
tentive to him, and he was sometimes much enter¬ 
tained by the superlative exertions of street-car 

\ 

conductors and other kind persons who evidently 
considered him more frail than he really was. He 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


437 


was everywhere a favorite with servants, because 
he endeavored to make as little trouble as possible 
and never omitted a “Thank you” or a word of 
appreciation where it was due. The maid who 
waited upon him at breakfast was as sure of a 
cheery “Good morning!” as was the guest who 
sat at table. His tastes in the matter of food 
were simple in the extreme, bread and milk form¬ 
ing the basis of each meal. He never used to¬ 
bacco, and while not pledged to total abstinence 
as to spirituous liquors his use of them was al¬ 
most wholly medicinal. Coming of Quaker 
ancestry, all display of whatever sort was dis¬ 
tasteful to him, and to be in debt was a condition 
he could not endure. He was peculiarly free 
from little eccentricities, such as characterize 
many old persons, a sound common sense being 
one of his chief endowments. 

His father having died when he was too young 
to have really known him, he lavished a double 
affection upon the parent who was left to bear 
the burden of life alone, and his face glowed with 
filial pride when he spoke of her heroic struggles 
and sacrifices. It has been said that a man’s re¬ 
lations to women, how he regards them and how 
he conducts himself towards them, are the most 
significant things about him. Julian was cer¬ 
tainly fortunate in the three women who most 
strongly influenced his life, his mother and both 
wives. He had many women friends too, and 
corresponded for years with Lydia Maria Child 


438 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


and Mrs. Rebecca Ruter Springer, wife of Con¬ 
gressman William M. Springer of Illinois, the 
pleasant interchange of letters being ended in 
each case only by death. He kept up the old-time 
custom of making social calls, both in Indianap¬ 
olis and Irvington, and went several times a year 
to see an old German woman, living in the coun¬ 
try, a helpless cripple for thirty years, treasuring 
up bits of interesting news to relate to her. There 
was a certain artlessness about him, coupled with 
an assured goodness and an ever-ready and 
boundless sympathy and understanding, which 
appealed at once to some men, but more often to 
the finer intuitions of women. One of these 
friends wrote soon after his death: “I can never 
forget the culture tone that characterized him as 
one met him in society and in his home,—the ab¬ 
solute lack of that coarseness that is so much a 
part of our modern politician. Without knowing 
his history I could as easily have said he was a 
poet or litterateur.” His daughter’s friends felt 
for him a genuine affection, and he was seldom too 
absorbed in any task to stop and chat with them. 

With his tall figure, which attracted attention 
wherever he went, there was a remarkable dig¬ 
nity of mien, and also a frankness of manner that, 
as was said of Uncle Toby, “Let you at once into 
his soul.” Like Uncle Toby too, there was some¬ 
thing about him, at least in later life, that seemed 
to make a special appeal to the unfortunate and 
unhappy; they felt instinctively his friendly 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


439 


spirit. He had little patience with vain shallow 
people and when they endeavored to talk with 
him it was apt to be a very one-sided affair, con¬ 
sisting on his part largely of monosyllables and 
grunts. But he always sought to introduce 
worthier themes than the ordinary chit-chat, and 
often read to a caller an extract from the book 
he was perusing or something timely from a 
magazine or newspaper. There was, it is true, a 
reserve about him that made him appear austere 
and unapproachable sometimes to those who did 
not really know him. This was chiefly due to 
that native shyness that he always struggled to 
overcome but which was in fact one of his most 
attractive qualities. There is no doubt that 
he continued to learn and to grow to the day of 
his death. 

From the foregoing personal sketch it must be 
clear that here was a man worth knowing, a man 
whose life, apart from any public or political sig¬ 
nificance, was a distinct asset to the community, 
an incentive to higher things, and an unmistak¬ 
able proof that humanity’s march is onward. 
Moreover, so tireless and irrepressible a spirit is 
itself the prophecy of its own continuation and 
development, and therefore another proof of im¬ 
mortality. 



















INDEX 


Abbott, Dr. Jacob, 46, 47. 
Abercrombie, John, 47. 
Abolitionism, 68, 80, 112. 
Abolitionist, 86, 96, 124, 127, 
128, 163, 172, 233, 246 n., 
293. 

Adams, Charles Francis, 67, 
78, 79, 103, 109, 278. 
Adams, Charles Francis, Jr., 
415 n. 

Adams, Henry, 110, 415 n. 
Adams, John, 284. 

Adams, John Quincy, 82, 
228, 430, 434. 

Adams, Samuel, 306. 
Alabama, 89, 299. 
Albertson, Nathaniel, 88. 
Allen, Charles, 87, 102, 111. 
Allen County, 173. 

Alley, John B., 111. 

Alton (Ill.), 169. 

America, 108, 170 n., 171. 
Antioch College, 248. 
Amistad, 84. 

Anderson, Thomas, 189. 
Anthony, Joseph, 144, 145, 
146. 

Anthony, Susan B., 69 n., 
315 n. 

Anti-slavery Standard, 329. 
Antoine, C. C., 370. 

Apology , Robert Barclay’s, 
38 

Arena, The, 413, 417. 
Arkansas, 299. 

Arnold, Isaac N., 249. 
Ashley, James M., 247, 218. 
Atheism, 231. 

Atlantic Monthly, 379, 380, 

381. 

29—24142 


Baal, 218. 

Badeau, Adam, 419 n. 
Badger, George E., 284. 
Bailey, Gamaliel, 76, 77, 89, 
102, 173, 174, 197. 

Baker, Conrad 64. 

Baker, Edward D., 219. 
Ball’s Bluff, 219. 

Bancroft, George, 246, 
Bancroft-Davis, J. C., 419 n. 
Banks, Nathaniel P., 167, 
300. 

Barclay’s, Robert, Apology, 
38. 

Barnburner, 80. 
Bashkirtseff, Marie, Journal 
of, 409. 

Battle of Fredericksburg, 
223. 

Bayard, General George D., 
246. 

Beard, Henry, 393. 

Beaty, Andrew, 30. 

Beeson, David, 37. 

Belial, 91. 

Bell, John, 284. 

Bentley, C. B., 66 n. 

Benton, Thomas H., 92. 
Bermuda, Island of, 24. 
Bible, 32, 39, 71, 98, 99. 
Bidwell, Andrew, 182. 
Bidwell, Solomon, 182. 
Bingham, John A., 247, 308 
n. 

Birney, James G., 59, 76; 
Life of 409. 

Black, Jeremiah S., 374. 
Blackford, Isaac, 55. 

Black Republicans, 89 n. 


( 441 ) 



442 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Blackstone’s Commentaries, 
49. 

Blackwell, Henry B., 428. 
Blaine, James G., 365, 386, 
395. 

Blair, Francis P., Jr., 223. 
Bloomers, 89 n. 

Bloomington. 88. 

Bonine, E. J., 56 n. 
Bontwell, George S., 308 n. 
Booth, Edwin and Junius 
Brutus, 436. 

Boston, 109, 110, 412. 
Boston Daily Herald, 407, 
427. 

Bowditch, Dr., 406. 

Bracken County (Ky.). 133. 
Bradbury, William, 293. 
Braddock’s Defeat, 24. 
Brand, Carl F., 156 n., 163 
n., 173 n. 

Breckenridge, John C., 64, 
235. 

Bremer, Frederika, 90. 
Bright, Jesse D., 64, 118. 
148. 

Bright, John, 432. 

Bristow, Benjamin H., 365. 
British West Indies, 231. 
Brough, John, 247. 

Brown, Albert G., 98. 
Brown, John, 198. 

Brown, William J., 85, 88, 
92, 118, 119, 134. 
Browning, Robert, 435. 
Bruno, Giordano, 434. 
Bryan, William J., 415, 416. 
Bryant, William Cullen, 
130. 

Buchanan, James. 178, 180, 
188, 194, 195, 222, 320. 
Buckalew, Charles R., 222. 
Buckle, Henry T., 306. 
Buckner, Simon B., 414. 
Buffalo, 78, 80, 369. 
Bulloch, Margaret, 24. 

Bull Run, 215, 219, 260. 


Bull, John, 240. 

Burbank, J. E., 54, 56 n. 

Burbank, Lucinda Maria, CO. 

Burgess, John W., 419 n. 

Burleigh, Charles S., 111. 

Burlingame, Anson, 110, 314 
n. 

Burlington, 48. 

Burnett, Henry C., 235. 

Burns, Robert, 32, 435. 

Burnt District, 85, 243, 292, 
306, 334, 409. 

Butler’s Analogy, 51. 

Butler Bill, 61, 63, 67, 68. 

Butler, Benjamin F., 216. 

Butler, Charles, 63. 

Butler, Capt. Enos, 28. 

Butler, Ovid, 127 n. 

Calhoun, John C., 92, 95, 
392 n. 

California, 73, 93, 94. 102, 
103, 269, 327, 382, 408. 

Cambridge (Mass.), 410. 

Cambridge City, 119. 

Cameron, Simon, 210, 211, 
341, 368. 

Capital punishment, 61. 

Capitol, 87, 222. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 48, 65, 238. 

Carmichael, Jesse D., 189. 

Carpenter, Matt H., 379. 

Carrollton (Mo.), 382. 

Cartter, David R., 205. 

Cass. Lewis, 29 n., 74, 75, 
138, 221. 

Catholics, 155. 

Catron, Thomas B., 403. 

“Caveat”, 67. 

Cecil County, (Md.), 24. 

Centerville, 21, 29, 30, 31, 
35, 36. 44, 50, 53, 55, 56, 
57, 58, 60, 61, 65, 66, 69, 
82, 84, 111, 118, 143, 144, 
145, 195, 203. 

Centerville News Letter, 66, 
67, 68. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


443 


Centerville Scientific and 
Literary Association, 50. 
Century Magazine , 413, 

427. 

Chandler, Zachariah, 169, 
220, 221, 272, 277, 370. 
Channing, William Ellery, 
65, 82, 434, 

Charleston fS. C.), 272. 
Chase, Salmon P., 79, 93, 
131, 139, 152 n., 174, 176, 
177, 182, 183, 203, 205 
206, 207, 208, 209 n., 211, 
212, 249, 250, 269, 357, 

415, 428. 

Cheever. George B., 232 n. 
Chicago, 135, 174, 179, 203, 
205, 211, 368. 

Chicago Dial, 412, 419 n. 
Chicago Inter-Ocean, 392. 
Chicago Republican, 313, 
330r 

Chicago Times, 367. 
Chicago Tribune, 233. 
Chickahominy, 262. 

Child, Lydia Maria, 233, 
239, 241, 250, -342, 428, 
434. 

China, 314 n. 

Christian, 125, 159, 160. 
Christian Examiner, 70. 
Christianity, 125, 140, 297. 
Christmas, 44, 45. 
Cincinnati, 87, 127, 163, 

179, 369. 

Cincinnati Enquirer, 367, 
369 n. 

Cincinnati Gazette, 51, 195, 
282, 293, 369 n. 
Cincinnati Graphic . 403. 
Civil Service, 213, 242, 344, 

416. 

Civil Service Journal, 331. 
Civil Tenure Act, 309, 310. 
Civil War, 81, 226, 242, 250, 
251, 298. 

Clark, George Rogers, 28. 


Clarke, Charles B., 249 n. 

Clarkson, Thomas, 246 n. 

Clay, Cassius M., 133, 174. 

Clay, Mrs. Clement C., 89 n. 

Clay Club, 58. 

Clav, Henry, 32, 52, 59, 
64 n., 92, 94, 104, 392 n. 

Clephane, George, 174. 

Cleveland, Grover, 395, 396, 
405, 406, 415, 416, 417. 

Cleveland (Ohio), 122. 

Clingman, Thomas L., 97. 

Cobb, Howell, 90, 91, 112. 

Coburn, John, 189, 190, 317. 

Coffin, Charles F., 293. 

Colfax, Schuyler, 252. 

Colley, Sims A., 189. 

Colonization, 66. 

Colorado, 163 n., 305. 

Columbia University, 419 n. 

Columbus (Ind.), 180. 

Columbus (Ohio), 176, 202, 

211 . 

Columbus Independent, 180. 

Columbus Democrat, 175. 

Combe, George, 47. 

Commentaries, Blackstone, 
49. 

Committee on Conduct of 
the War, 219, 220, 222, 
223, 251. 

Committee on Education 
and Labor, 308. 

Committee on Public Lands, 
219, 252, 269, 299, 308, 
311, 337. 

Committee on Territories, 
222 . 

Committee on Public Ex¬ 
penditures, 219. 

Compromise (of 1850), 94, 
95. 104, 110, 117, 119, 127, 
129, 130, 152, 195 n. 

Confederacy, 235. 

Conkling, Roscoe, 365 n. 

Connecticut, 324, 391, 398. 


444 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Constitution of 1851, 62, 
119. 

Constitution of the United 
States, 127, 186, 187, 216, 
226, 229, 235, 236, 261, 

276, 278, 290, 301, 315, 

373, 415, 427. 

Copperhead, 284, 285, 290. 

Corcoran, General Michael, 
246. 

Corydon, 29, 64 n. 

Covode, John, 220, 221. 

Cowper, William, 32, 200. 

Crapnel, Rachel, 49. 

Crawfordsville, 88. 

Creek and Seminole Indi¬ 

ans, 84. 

Critical Period in American 
History, Fiske, 408. 

Crittenden Compromise, 
304. 

Crocker, C. B., 127 n. 

Cromwell, Oliver, 421. 

Curtis, George William, 
203, 205. 

Dante, 413, 434. 

Dark Lyceum, 53, 54, 55, 64, 
79. 

Dartmouth College, 221. 

Davis, Henry Winter, 277. 

Davis, Jefferson, 87, 214, 
246, 282. 

Dawson, John W., 173. 

Dayton (Ohio), 52, 175. 

Dayton, William L., 180. 

Dearborn County, 22. 

Declaration of Independ¬ 
ence, 106, 184, 203, 265, 
276. 

Delaware County, 308. 

Democrat, 90, 149, 151, 284, 
291. 

Democratic, 78, 85, 119, 123, 
126, 137, 140, 179, 288. 

Democracy, 80. 

Denver Republican , 426. 


Detroit (Mich.), 134. 
Dettingen, Battle of, 26. 
DeWette, 71. 

Dewey, Charles, 55. 
Dewhurst, Frederic E., 420. 
Dill, Thomas, 54. 

Disciples, 44. 

District of Columbia, 94, 
128, 156, 263, 295, 303, 
305, 316. 

Dix, John A., 129. 

Donelson, A. J., 172. 

Don Quixote, 47. 

Doolittle, James R., 391. 
Dorsey, Stephen W., 403. 
Doughface, 90, 96, 102, 124, 
147, 161, 171, 180, 205. 
Douglas, Stephen A., 149, 
151, 192, 195. 

Douglass, Frederick, 80, 
123 318 

Dred Scott Decision, 182, 
226. 

Dublin, 58. 

Dudley, William W., 406 n. 
Dumont, General, 246. 
Dunkers, 25. 

Dunham, Cyrus, 88. 

Dunn, George G., 167, 168. 
Dunn, Jacob, P., 21 n. 

Dunn, McKee, 257. 

Durkee, Charles, 102, 121, 
169, 170, 208. 

Edict of Nantes, 23. 

Earl of Oxford, 378. 
Electoral Commission, 372. 
Elkins, Stephen B., 403. 
Ellington, Pleasant, 147. 
Elliott, Hosea, 35 n. 
Ellsworth, H. L., 127 n.‘ 
Ellsworth, Henry, 189. 
Elmer, C. N., 56 n. 
Emerson in Concord, 409. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 
208, 434. 

England, 240. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


445 


Eng-lish Commonwealth. 
106. 

English, William H., 387. 

Exiles of Florida, 409. 

Faber, Infidelity, 51. 

Fee, John G., 123, 133, 198, 
200, 413. 

Fessenden, William Pitt, 
278, 310 n. 

Field, N., 180. 

Fielding, Henry, 47. 

Fillmore, Millard, 91 n., 

171, 172, 173, 178. 

Finch, Alexander, 56. 

Finch, Cyrus, 59. 

Finch, Hampden G., 66 n 

Finley, John, 57, 60. 

Fish, Hamilton, 419 n. 

Fiske’s Critical Period in 
American History, 408. 

Fitch, Graham N., 88. 

Florida, 238 n., 299, 370. 

Flourney, 165 n. 

Ford’s Theatre, 272. 

Forkner, Roswell, 293. 

Forrest, Edwin, 436. 

Fort Pillow, 260. 

Fort Wayne Times, 173. 

Foster, John, 48. 

Foster, Stephen S., 110. 

Foulke, William Dudley 
(Life of Morton), 119 n., 
144, 145, 150 n., 275 n., 
294 n., 412 n. 

Fountain City (Wayne 
Co.), 418. 

Fourth Congressional Dis¬ 
trict, 79. 

Fowler, Joseph S., 310 n. 

Fox, George, 126, 384. 

France, 23, 240. 

Franklin County, 328. 

Frederick, King of Prussia, 
26, 27. 

Free Democracy, 132, 152. 

Freeman, John, 146, 147. 


Free Soil, 75, 81, 83, 85, 
86, 89, 92, 96, 102, 104, 
109, 111, 118, 122, 123, 

127, 127 n., 130, 138, 139, 
148, 195 n., 202, 211, 214, 
246 n., 384, 403. 

Free Territory Sentinel, 78. 

Fremont, Jessie Benton, 
224. 

Fremont, John C., 91 n., 
174, 178, 180, 218, 222, 

223, 246. 

Fugitive Slave Law, 94, 96, 
104, 107, 118, 120, 130, 

148, 225, 263. 

Furness, William H., 71, 

101 . 

Fusion convention, 164, 168, 
173. 

Fusicnists, 171. 

Gabriel, 91. 

Gage, Matilda Joslyn, 69 n., 
317 n. 

Garfield, James A., 387, 

390. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, 
86, 110, 127, 139, 233, 392, 
407, Life of, 409, 418, 

421. 

Gay farm, 52 n. 

General Land Office, 395, 
402, 405. 

George II of Great Britain, 
26. 


George, Henry, 282. 
Georgia, 147, 238 n. 
Germany, 116. 


Giddings, Joshua R., 67 

, 79, 

82, 

84, 87, 88, 

96, 

102, 

110, 

120, 121, 

122, 

128, 

152 

n., 165, 170, 

176, 

196, 

203, 

204, 207, 

208, 

234, 

248, 

277, 329, Life of, 

409, 

410, 

411, 427. 




Godwin, William, 47. 
Goldsmith, 47. 


446 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Gold Standard, 414. 

Gooch, Daniel W., 220, 221. 

Goodell, William, 232 n. 

Gorman, 88. 

Grant, Ulysses S., 222, 224, 
320, 365, 366 n., 386, 390. 

Grave, Howell, 293. 

Greeley, Horace, 75, 130, 
177, 178, 206, 331, 332, 
392, 394, 432. 

Greenfield, 52, 55, 57, 86, 
382 

Greensboro (N. C.), 199. 

Greenville, 88. 

Gresham, Matilda, 64 n., 
406 n. 

Gresham, Walter Q., 64 n., 
406 n. 

Grimes, James W., 310 n. 

Grotius, Hugo, 116. 

Guadaloupe Hidalgo, Treaty 
of, 398. 

Hagerstown, 46. 

Hale, Edward Everett, 382. 

Hale, John P., 122 n., 131, 
132, 135, 137. 

Halleck, H. W., 222. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 283. 

Hammond, William A., 326, 
327. 

Hancock Countv, 52. 

*/ * 

Hancock, John, 283. 

Hancock, Winfield S., 387. 

Hannah, I. A., 56 n. 

Harding, Benjamin F., 222. 

Harding, Stephen S., 127 n., - 
163, 420. 

Harlan, Andrew J., 89. 

Harper’s Ferry, 198. 

Harper's Weekly , 407. 

Harris, William T., 413. 

Harrison, Benjamin, 403, 
406, 408, 412. 

Harrison, William Henry, 
33, 52, 175. 

Harrison campaign, 51. 


Hart, Albert Bushnell, 176. 

Harvard, 110. 

Harvey school, 45. 

Hayes, Rutherford B., 179, 
271, 308, 365, 366, 373. 

Helper’s Impending Crisis, 
198, 200. 

Henderson, John B., 310 n. 

Hendricks, Thomas A., 365, 
366, 367. 

Henry County, 145, 184, 

308. 

Henry, Patrick, — Tyler’s 
Life of, 408. 

TT pvfifl i or 

Hewitt, Abram S., 370, 376. 

Hicksite Friends, 41. 

Higginson, Thomas Went¬ 
worth, 406. 

History of the Rebellion , 
409. 

History of Woman Suf¬ 
frage, 69 n. 

Hodges, Benjamin, 84. 

Holland, 23. 

Holloway, David P., 67, 172. 

Holman, George, 29 n. 

Holman, Jesse, 29 n. 

Holman, William S., 225, 
817 

Homestead Bill, 85, 112, 
113, 252, 268, 298, 424. 

Hooker, Joseph, 222. 

Hoosier, 88, 121, 131, 176, 
224. 

Hoover, Andrew, 27, 28. 

Hoover, David, 28. 

Hoover, Elizabeth Way- 
mire, 27, 28. 

Hoover, Frederick, 28 n. 

Hoover, Henry, 28 n., 30, 
169. 

Hoover, Herbert, 28 n. 

Hoshour, Samuel K., 44, 51. 

Hosier, Louis, 42. 

Houston, Sam, 93. 

Howe, Daniel Wait, 156 n. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


447 


Howe, Timothy 0., 379. 
Howells, W. D., 380. 
Huddleston, Jonathan, 202. 
Hudson, R. N., 54. 

Huguenot, 23. 

Hull, M. R., 127 n. 

Humboldt, 296. 

Hume, David, 42, 47. 
Hunker, 80, 118, 120. 

Hunt, Col. George, 29. 
Hunter, David, 238. 

Ibsen, Henrik, 75. 

Illinois, 88, 133, 169, 190. 
195, 438. 

Impeachment, 300, 308. 
Impending Crisis, Helper, 
198, 200. 

Imnerialism, 418. 
Independence Day, 184. 
“Independent Democrats”, 
152. 

Indiana, 21, 27, 33, 44, 50, 
79, 86, 115, 144, 151, 155. 
163, 168, 172, 177, 181, 

183, 190, 196, 206, 22». 

237, 278, 288, 294, 295, 

317, 329, 391, 397, 403, 

426, 429. 

Indiana Central Railway, 
143 n. 

Indiana Historical Society 
43 n. 

Indiana Law Magazine, 393. 
Indiana Magazine of His¬ 
tory, 163 n. 

Indiana State Journal, 62. 
Indianapolis, 29, 88, 127, 
128, 139, 154, 164, 408, 

414, 438. 

Indianapolis Daily Journal, 
127 n., 191 n., 275, 291, 
292, 294, 368, 422. 
Indianapolis Daily Sentinel, 
191 n., 292, 368, 423. 
Indianapolis Herald, 292. 


Indianapolis News, 368, 417 

n., 424. 

Indians, 28, 29, 84, 312, 314, 
330. 

Infidelity, Faber on, 51. 

International Review, 379, 
381, 382, 386, 392, 393. 

Iowa, 47, 48, 197, 317. 

Irvington, 360, 438. 

Isaiah, 421. 

Island of Bermuda, 24; of 
Jamaica, 231. 

Jackson, Andrew, 281, 284, 
373. 

Jamaica, Island of, 231. 

Janney, Abel, 30. 

Jansen, McClurg & Co., 394. 

Jay, John, 251 n., 283. 

Jay, William, 83. 

Jefferson, Joseph, 436. 

Jefferson (Ohio), 165, 204, 
234, 248, 409, 412. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 100, 107, 
186, 197, 198, 283, 284, 
296. 

Jeffersonville, 179. 

Jeffersonian, The Richmond, 
169, 172 n. 

Jemison, J., 56 n. 

Jennings, Jonathan, 21, 29. 

Jesuit, 161. 

Johnson, Andrew, 112, 220, 
221, 258, 273, 280, 290, 
298, 305, 306, 320, 330 
398. 

Johnson, Cave, 284. 

Jonhson, Henry U., 293 n., 
332 n. 

Johnson, Nimrod H., 293. 

Johnson, Oliver, 233, 392. 

Johnson, Robert U., 293 n. 

Johnston, Joseph E., 219. 

Jones, James, 57. 

Jones, Jenkin Lloyd, 428. 

Jones, Joseph O., 136. 

Judiciary Committee, 225 


448 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Julian, Anne Elizabeth 
(Finch), 60, 61, 82, 102, 
144, 198, 202, 204, 207. 

Julian, Edward Channing, 
61. 

Julian, Elizabeth, 30. 

Julian, Frederick Hoover, 

61. 

Julian, George Washington, 
birth 21; ancestry, 23-28; 
youth, 35-42; surveyor, 
43, 44, 46; teacher, 44, 
45, 46; goes to Iow r a, 47; 
begins to read law, 49; 
bleeding, 50; first articles 
for the press, 50, 51; in 
campaign of 1840, 51, 52; 
begins practice of law, 
52; organizer The Dar 
Lyceum, 53; admitted to 
practice before Supreme 
Court, 55; life in Green¬ 
field, 55; return to Cen¬ 
terville, 56; first case in 
court, 57, 58; first po¬ 
litical speech, 58; mar¬ 
riage, 59; elected to Leg¬ 
islature, 61; service, 62, 
63; first anti-slavery ar¬ 
ticles, 66, 67; seeks nom¬ 
ination for State Senator, 
67, 68; religious perplexi¬ 
ties, 70-73; goes to Buf¬ 
falo convention, 76; cam¬ 
paign of 1848, 79-82; let¬ 
ters to Giddings, 82-84; 
elected to Congress, 86; 
goes to Washington, 87; 
first speech in Congress, 
96-100; second speech, 
105-109; visits New Eng¬ 
land, 109-111; speech on 
Homestead Bill, 112-115; 
interest in world peace, 
116; defeated for re-nom¬ 
ination, 120; “carrying 
on” 121-128; for extreme 


Temperance legislation, 
128, 129; nominated for 
Vice President, 131; the 
campaign, 133-137; con¬ 
tinued political activity, 
139; speaks at State Free 
Democratic convention 
in Indianapolis, 139-142; 
professional and home 
life, 143-148; throat cut, 
145; interest in woman 
suffrage, 149; combats 
Kansas-Nebraska heresy, 
150, 151; in campaign of 
1854, 153-155; opposes 

Know Nothingism, 156, 
157; speaks at Cincinnati, 
157-162; goes to Pitts¬ 
burgh convention of 1856, 
169; enters campaign for 
Fremont, 174; reflection 
on Buchanan’s election, 
180-181; speech at Rays- 
ville, 184-188; defends 
West, an alleged fugitive 
slave, 189-192; further 
missionary efforts, 192- 
196; contrasted with Gid¬ 
dings, 196, 197; nomi¬ 

nated for Congress in 
1860, 202; death of wife, 
207; visits Lincoln, 210; 
annoyed by office seekers, 
213; goes to inaugura¬ 
tion, 214; his radicalism, 
216 et seq.; is appointed 
to Committee on Conduct 
of the War, 219; speech 
on Cause and Cure of our 
National Troubles, 225- 
232; speech on Confisca¬ 
tion and Liberation, 234- 
239; hard work, 242; 
urges arming the negroes, 
244; visits Gerrit Smith, 
246; takes part in Mor¬ 
gan Raid, 247; second 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


449 


marriage, 248; declines to 
work for nomination of 
Chase in 1864, 250; inter¬ 
est in land question, 252 
et seq.; speech on Radi¬ 
calism and Conservatism, 
259-267; advocates sale of 
mineral lands, 268-271; 
Reconstruction, 275-290; 
assaulted by Meredith, 
292-295; opposes land 
bonus for soldiers, 298; 
proposes Eight Hour bill, 
300; Reconstruction 

again, 302-306; on Im¬ 
peachment committee, 
308; mistaken ideas as to 
Impeachment, 309-311; 
again opposes land boun¬ 
ty for soldiers, 313, 314; 
proposes first Woman 
Suffrage Amendment in 
Congress, 315; work for 
Woman Suffrage, 316- 
319; in the Grant cam¬ 
paign, 330-332; nervous 
breakdown, 326; defeated 
for re-nomination, 331; 
last speech in Congress, 
336-341; volume of 
speeches, 341-343; de¬ 
clines nomination 
for Congressman-at- 
large, 347; in Greeley 
campaign, 350 et seq.; 
removal to Irvington, 
360; speech at Rockville, 
362; in Tilden campaign, 
367 et seq.; goes to New 
Orleans as “visiting 
statesman”, 370; speech 
on “The Louisiana Re¬ 
turning Board”, 372; vis¬ 
its Washington, 374; 
writes for the Review, 
376-387; forms law part¬ 
nership in Washington, 


381; second trip to Cali¬ 
fornia, 382; in campaign 
of 1880, 387-391; further 
Review articles, 382, 383; 
in campaign of 1884, 395; 
appointed Surveyor-Gen¬ 
eral of New Mexico, 396; 
examines old land grants, 
398-402; appointment 
confirmed, 403; presents 
plan of settlement of 
grant claims, 405; pre¬ 
pares speech in behalf of 
Cleveland, 405; literary 
work, 407; return to In¬ 
diana, 408; writes Life of 
Giddings, 409-410; visits 
World’s Fair at Chicago, 
412; in campaign of 1896, 
413-417; is opposed to 
Imperialism, 418; death 
and funeral, 419-421; 
newspaper estimates, 422- 
429; personal traits, 429- 
439. 

Julian, Grace Giddings 
(Mrs. Charles B. Clarke), 
249 n. 

Julian, Isaac (I), 24, 25, 29, 
38. 

Julian, Isaac (II), 25, 28. 

Julian, Isaac (III), 21, 27. 

Julian, Isaac Hoover, 29, 
30, 49, 70, 195, 411, 413. 

Julian, Jacob Burnet, 29, 
38, 75, 80, 145, 169, 173. 

Julian, Laura Giddings, 
248, 359, 375, 381, 394, 
410. 

Julian, John M., 29, 32, 51. 

Julian, Louis Henry, 61, 
248. 

Julian, Martha Bryan, 29. 

Julian, Paul, 249 n. 

Julian, Rebecca Hoover, 27, 
28, 31, 32, 35. 

Julian, Sarah, 29. 


450 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Julian, Virginia Spillard, 
30. 

Kansas, 150, 397. 

Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 149, 
150, 160. 

Kenosha (Wis.), 121. 

Kentucky, 92, 133, 190, 198, 
218, 235, 257, 262, 294 n., 
365, 413, 426. 

Kidwell, Jonathan, 41, 50. 

King, Preston, 129, 170, 

208. 

Ivinley, Caleb, 38. 

Knightstown, 137. 

Know Nothing Party, 155, 
163, 172. 

Know Nothingism, 151, 156, 
161, 165, 174 n., 194. 

Know Nothings, 153, 162, 
165, 169, 171, 179. 

Kossuth, Louis, 315 n. 

Lafayette, General, 29, 108, 
315 n. 

Lafayette Journal, 295 n. 

Lamar, L. Q. C., 405. 

Lane, Henry S., 173, 204. 

Lane, Joseph, 64. 

Lawrence (Kas.), 382. 

Lawrenceburg, 46. 

Lecompton Constitution, 
193. 

Lee, Robert E., 282. 

Leeds, N. S., 293. 

Legislative divorces, 61. 

Legislature, 66, 86. 

Leiter, Benjamin F., 168. 

Leslie’s Short Method With 
The Deists; 51. 

Lewis County (Ky.), 133. 

Lewis, Samuel, 131, 148. 

Liberator, The, 110. 

Liberty (Indiana), 174. 

Liberty Party, 128, 347. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 81, 88, 
91 n., 137, 163 n., 195, 

203, 204, 206, 208, 210, 


212, 

214, 

216, 

218, 

219, 

221, 

223, 

232, 

238, 

245, 

249, 

250, 

251, 

255, 

272, 

273, 

275, 

276, 

277, 

278, 

279, 

283, 

304, 314 n., 

403. 


Lind, Jenny, 110, 436. 
Lippincott, Sara J. (Grace 
Greenwood), 90. 

Lloyd, Humphrey, 37. 

Loan, Benjamin F., 222. 
Locke’s Essays, 47. 

Lodge, Henry Cabot, 386. 
Logansport, 89. 

Long, Edward, 25. 

Long, Elisha, 46. 

Long, Sarah, 25, 41. 
Louisiana, 299, 370. 
Louisiana Purchase, 149. 
Louisiana Returning Board, 
370, 371, 372, 390. 
Louisville Courier Journal, 
367. 

Love joy, Owen, 169. 

Lowell, James Russell, 69, 

110 . 

Lynn (Mass.), 111. 

Lyons, Lord, 240. 

McCall, Samuel, 275, 418. 
McClellan, George B., 91 n., 
219, 221, 222, 223, 251. 
McClurg, A. C. & Co., 410. 
McCulloch, Hugh, 269. 
McCullough, N. C., 53. 
McDonald, Joseph E., 88. 
McDowell, Irvin, 219, 222. 
McGaughey, Edward W., 
89. 

Macy, Jonathan, 79. 
Madison, James, 99, 197, 
198, 284. 310. 

Magazine of Western His¬ 
tory, 407. 

Maine, 124, 128, 303. 
Mallory, Robert, 257. 

Mann, Horace, 197. 

Marion, 89. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


451 


Marshall, John, 310. 
Martin, Jehu, 37. 

Martineau, Harriet, 69, 72. 
Martineau, James, 198. 
Mason County (Ky.) 133. 
Mason, James M., 95. 
Massachusetts, 87, 92, 130, 
173, 220, 278, 288, 406. 
Mazzini, Giuseppi, 434. 
Meade, George G., 222. 
Medill, Joseph, 233. 

Meloy, William A., 351. 
Mendenhall, Hiram, 59 n. 
Mercier, M., 240. 

Meredith, George, 75, 162. 
Meredith, Samuel, 60. 
Meredith, Solomon, 172, 
292, 293, 294, 295. 
Merrill, Catharine, 433. 
Methodism, 41. 

Methodist, 61, 66, 139, 198. 
Mexican land grants, 398, 
400. 

Mexico, 73, 399. 

Michigan, 133, 169,. 173, 

220, 221, 268, 317, 368. 
Milan (Ind.), 420 n. 
Milliken, J. P., 127 n. 
Milton, John, 413, 421, 435. 
Milton (Wayne Co.), 46, 47, 
48. 

Miner, N. W., 58. 

Mineral Land Bill, 269. 
Mishawaka, 135. 

Mississippi, 87, 98, 99, 288, 
299. 

Mississippi River, 23, 24, 
48, 108. 

Missouri, 92, 217, 218, 222, 
268. 

Missouri Compromise, 149, 
151, 152, 154, 168. 
Missouri Republican, 344. 
Monroe, James, 284. 
Montreal (Canada), 234, 
248. 

Morgan, Charles, 34. 


Morgan Raid, 247. 

Morris, Thomas, 392, 419 n. 

Morrow, Joseph, 63. 

Morse, John T., 386. 

Morton, Oliver P., 54, V'" 
119, 145, 150, 172, 173, 
193, 194, 247, 273, 275 n., 
280, 281, 282, 294, 365 n., 
366 n., 368, 425. 

Mott, James, 109, 246. 

Mott, Lucretia, 70, 71, 72, 
109, 246, 418. 

Mt. Pleasant, 43. 

Muncie, 145. 

Naples (Ill.), 189. 

National Era, 76, 89, 153, 
167, 173. 

National Portrait Gallery, 
307. 

National Republican, 292. 

National Road, 44. 

Nativism, 167, 169. 

Nebraska, 149, 150, 153, 
305. 

Nelson on Infidelity, 51. 

Nevada, 270. 

Newcastle, 52, 57. 

New England, 85, 108, 166, 
196, 284, 426. 

New Hampshire, 131, 197, 
221, 324, 398. 

New Jersey, 324, 391. 

Newman, John S., 50, 56. 

New Madison, 48. 

New Mexico, 93, 103, 105, 
155, 331, 396, 397, 398, 
401, 404, 408. 

New Orleans, '284, 370, 371. 

New Purchase, 29. 

New World, 23. 

New York, 81, 85, 89, 93, 


163, 

166, 

173, 

177, 

194, 

220, 

222, 

257, 

284, 

326, 

327, 

329, 

331, 

335, 

341, 

383. 






452 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


New York Evening Post, 
393. 

New York Independent, 

170. 

New York Nation, 407, 412, 
429. 

New York Surt, 393. 

New York Tribune, 167, 
195 313. 

New York World, 393. 
Nicholson, Andrew, 39. 
Nicholson, Meredith, 60. 
Nicholson, Timothy, 293. 
Nilsson, Christine, 436. 
Noble, Laz, 56 n. 

Noble, Sarah Jane, 60. 
Noblesville, 135. 

Nordyke, David, 293. 

North American Review, 
376, 377, 379, 381, 393, 
396, 402, 404. 

North Carolina, 97, 99, 197, 
198, 392, 429. 

Northwest Territory, 124. 

Oberlin College, 248. 

Odell, Moses F., 220, 222. 


Ohio, 

88, 89, 93, 

131, 

133, 

148, 

173, 

176, 

183, 

196, 

197, 

220, 

247, 

288, 

308, 

344, 

369, 

429. 



Ohio River, 

22, 178. 



“Old Whitey”, 79. 

Omnibus Bill, 94. 

Ordinance of 1787, 73. 
Oregon, 64, 73, 93, 331. 
Orth, Godlove S., 317. 
Osborn, Charles, 43 n., 392, 
419 n. 

Osborn, James, 43. 

Ossian, 47. 

Owen, Robert Dale, 246. 

Pacific Ocean, 124, 324. 
Pacificus Papers, 409. 
Packard, Jasper, 317. 
Paducah (Ky.), 292. 


Paine, Thomas, 32, 51. 

Palfrey, John G., 71, 101, 

110 . 

Palmer, John M., 414. 

Panama, 179. 

Paris, 23, 379. 

Parke, Benjamin, 29 n. 

Parker, Samuel W., 85, 86, 
118, 119, 120, 197. 

Parker, Theodore, 110, 198, 
434. 

Pattison, George, 53, 382. 

Penn, William, 25. 

Pennington, Dennis, 64. 

Pennsylvania, 44, 91, 108, 
206, 220, 222, 324. 

People’s Party, 171, 173. 

Peterboro (N. Y.), 246. 

Philadelphia, 27, 74, 109, 
156, 169, 173, 175, 176, 
192, 197, 203, 246, 369. 

Philadelphia Chronicle, 
369 n. 

Phillips, Stephen C., 110. 

Phillips, Wendell, 127, 329, 
330, 418. 

Philomath Encyclopedia, 50. 

Pierce, Edward L., 413. 

Pierce, Franklin, 137. 

Pike’s Arithmetic, 38. 

Pilate, 126. 

Pinchback, P. B. S., 370. 

Pittsburgh, 85, 87, 130, 169, 
171, 173, 174 n., 369. 

Plato, 434. 

Plutarch’s Lives, 47. 

Political Recollections, 51, 
198. 247, 382, 394, 427. 

Polk, James K., 80, 222. 

Pope, John, 222. 

Porter, Albert G., 225. 

Posey, Governor Thomas, 
29. 

Positivism, 72. 

Potomac, 219. 

Presbyterian, 24. 

Priestley, Joseph, 198. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


453 


Pritchard, Mr., 46. 

r reclamation of Emancipa¬ 
tion, 232, 244, 278. 

Protestant, 77, 124. 

Prussia, 221. 

Pack, 407. 

Pumphrey, Nick, 53. 

Puritan, 323. 

Putnam, Lydia R., 375. 

Quakers, 24, 25, 27, 43, 71, 
79, 135, 197, 429. 

Quincy (Mass.), 103, 110. 

Radical , The, 343. 

Ralston, Samuel M., 21 n. 

Randolph County (N. C.), 
25, 27, 308. 

Randolph, John — Henry 
Adams’ Life of, 408. 

Rantoul, Robert, 129. 

Rariden, James, 56. 

Ray, Martin M., 56. 

Raysville (Ind.), 184. 

Rea, John H., 189, 190. 

Reconstruction, 274, 305, 

309. 

Reed, D. W., 53. 

Reid, Whitelaw, 251 n. 

Republic, 227, 287, 301, 302, 
307, 314, 342. 

Republican, 156, 168, 169, 

171, 173, 176, 181, 192, 

195, 202, 211, 213, 225, 

235, 242, 247, 291. 

Revolutionary War, 24, 228, 
282. 

Rhode Island, 398. 

Rhodes, James Ford, 156, 
195 n., 251 n., 413. 

Rhodes’ History of the 
United States, 91 n., 
275 n. 

Rice, Allen Thorndyke, 376, 
377, 379, 403. 

Richmond, Wayne County, 
28, 30, 57 n., 201, 217, 


275, 280, 281, 332 n., 

413. 

Richmond Palladium, 67, 
172. 

Richmond (Va.), 260. 
Riddle, A. G., 409. 

Ridpath, John Clark, 417. 
Riley, Reuben A., 64. 

Ripley County, 163. 

Roberts, J., 190. 

Robinson, Andrew L., 127 n. 
Robinson, Charles, 382. 
Robinson, John L., 147, 148. 
Rochester, 195. 

Rockville, 89. 

Rome, 161, 377. 

Rosecrans, William S., 222, 
246. 

Ross, Edmund G., 310 n., 

397, 398. 

Rousseau, L. H., 246. 

Rue, Richard, 28, 29 n. 
Rustic Club, 50. 

St. Julien, Rene, 23, 24, 25. 
St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 
426. 

St. Louis Republic, 407. 

St. Vincent’s Sanitarium, 

398. 

Sackett, David F., 40. 
Sackett, Martha, 40. 

Salem, 88. 

Salisbury, 56 n. 

San Domingo, 341. 

Santa Fe, 397, 408. 

Satan, 91. 

Say’s Political Economy, 58. 
Schenck, Robert C., 299. 
Schurz, Carl, 215, 216, 347. 
Scott, Winfield. 137, 210. 
Semans, John B., 127 n. 
Sewall, Samuel E., 406. 
Seward, William H., 93, 
174, 194, 204, 205, 206, 
207, 211, 272. 

Shakespeare, William, 435. 


454 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


Shanks, John P. C., 317. 

Shays’ Rebellion, 302. 

Shelby County, 328. 

Shelbyville, 320. 

Shellabarger amendment, 
306. 

Shepherd, “Boss”, 368. 

Sheridan, Philip H., 222. 

Sherman, John, 372. 

Sherman, William Tecum- 
seh, 222. 

Siddall, J. P., 54. 

Sidney, Algernon, 106. 

Simpson, Green T., 57. 

Simpson’s Plea for Reli¬ 
gion, 51. 

Slidell, John, 240. 

Smith, Caleb B., 83, 85, 210, 
211, 247. 

Smith Gerrit, 152 n., 233, 
246, 432. 

Smith, Theodore Clark, 418. 

Sothern, Edwin A., 436. 

South Bend, 135. 

South Carolina, 92, 238 n., 
283, 284, 287, 370. 374 

Southworth, Mrs. E. D. E. 
N., 90, 102. 

Spain, 399. 

Spanish land grants, 398, 
400. 

Sparks, Jared, 65. 

Spaulding, E. G., 415 n. 

Springer, Rebecca Ruter, 
438. 

Springer, William M., 438. 

Springfield (Ill.), 210, 273. 

Springfield Republican, 412, 
427. 

Stanton, Edwin M., 246, 

310— Life of, by George 
C. Gorham, 418. 

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 
69 n., 317 n. 

State Legislature, 61, 62, 
63. 

Sterne, Lawrence, 47. 


Stevens, Collins S., 57. 

Stevens, S. C., 127 n. 

Stevens, Thaddeus, 232, 249, 
275, 278, 301, 415 n. 

Life of, by Samuel Mc¬ 
Call, 419. 

Stone, Lucy, 428. 

Strattan, Stephen, 293. 

Stubbs, Lewis D., 293. 

Sullivan, Jeremiah, 55. 

Sumner, Charles, 101, 109, 
122, 215, 216, 218, 248, 
277, 278, 329, 347, 419 n., 
421, 428. 

Supreme Court (Ind.) 55, 
146. 

Talbott, J. G., 56 n. 

Taney, Roger B., 188. 

Tappan, Lewis, 101. 

Taylor, Zachary, 74, 75, 76, 
79, 84 93, 95, 102, 210, 

970 00A 

Teller, Henry M., 416. 

Temperance, 56, 151, 153. 

Tennyson, Alfred, 435. 

Tennessee, 220, 221, 258, 
284, 300, 305. 

Terre Haute, 135, 294 n. 

Test, Charles S., 56, 172. 

Texas, 93, 94, 102, 104, 155, 
413. 

The Revolution, 315 n. 

Thompson, Richard W., 179. 

Thurman, Allen G., 369. 

Tilden, Samuel .J., 365, 366, 
367, 369, 371, 376, 392, 
395. 

Tippecanoe, 33. 

Tippecanoe Battleground, 
52. 

True Republican, 195. 

Trumbull, Lyman, 220, 
310 n., 347, 428. 

Turpie, David, 153 n. 

Tyler, Life of Patrick Hen¬ 
ry, 408. 


GEORGE W. JULIAN 


455 


Uncle Tom’s 

Cabin, 76, 

141. 

Union, 

97, 

155, 

187, 

188, 

214, 

216. 

218, 

222, 

236, 

258, 

265, 

277, 

283, 

284, 

285, 

288, 

289, 

301, 

302, 

304, 

306. 




Unitar 

ian Re vie w 

42, 

407. 

United 

States, 23, 

. 109, 

141, 

177, 

217, 

230, 

236, 

254, 

277, 

284, 

288, 

289, 

303, 

307, 

312, 

323, 

398. 

401. 

United 

States vs. Water- 


house, 148. 

Unity, 428. 

Universalist, 50. 

Utah, 105, 155, 163, 316. 

Vaile, Rawson, 78. 
Vallandigham, Austin W., 

189, 190, 344. 

Van Buren, John, 130. 

Van Buren, Martin, 78, 80, 
81, 109, Shepherd’s Life 
of, 408. 

Van Winkle, Peter G., 
310 n. 

Vane, Sir Harry, 106. 
Vermont, 136, 197, 398. 
Vigo County, 136. 

Virginia, 89, 95, 165, 426. 
Volney’s Ruins, 42. 

Von Holst, 281. 

Von Holsts’ Constitutional 
History, 409. 

Voorhees, Daniel W., 237, 

317. 

Wabash and Erie Canal, 63. 
Wabash River, 22. 

Wade, Benjamin F., 205, 
220, 224, 272, 278. 
Wallace, David, 189, 190. 
Wallace, Lew, 196 n., 246. 
Walpole, Robert L., 190. 
Walpole, Thomas D., 55, 86, 

190. 

Warmoth, H. C., 370. 


War of 1812, 28. 

Ward, Artemus (Charles F. 
Brown), 214. 

Ward, Hamilton, 308 n. 

Washington (D.C.), 76, 82, 
87, 89, 92, 95, 102, 111, 
173, 174, 213, 248, 273, 
300, 306, 307, 308, 331, 
381, 394. 

Washington, George, 21, 95, 
283, 284. 

Watson’s Apology for the 
Bible, 51. 

Watts, Isaac, 47. 

Wayland (Mass.), 239. 

Waymire, John Rudolph, 26, 
27. 

Wayne County, 21, 25, 27, 
30, 47, 48, 56, 173. 

Wayne County Chronicle, 
44. 

Wayne County Record, 
58 n., 60, 63, 66, 67. 

Wayne County Seminary, 
56, 61. 

Wea Plain, 30. 

Webster, Daniel, 92, 95, 109, 

122 . 

Weed, Thurlow, 211. 

Wells, William V., 306. 

Wesley, John, 98, 126, 384. 

West (negro), 189, 192. 

Western Presage, 181. 

Western Reserve, 196, 409. 

Westfield, 135. 

West Grove, 25. 

Wheeler, William A., 365. 

Whier, 29, 51, 58, 59, 61, 63, 
65, 66, 67, 74, 75, 77, 78, 
79, 80, Conscience W. 

and Cotton W. 80, 85, 86, 
90, 123, 126, 137, 140, 151, 
384. 

Whitcomb, James, 64. 

White, Barbara, 24. 

White, Joseph Blanco, 71. 

White, Margaret Hoge, 24. 


456 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 


White, Dr. Robert, 24. 
Whitewater Canal, 46. 
Whitewater Valley, 22. 
Whittier, John G., 70, 343. 
Whiting, Solicitor, 253. 
Wigwam, 388. 

Willetts, Allison, 30. 
Willetts, Dr. Thomas, 48, 
49. 

William, J. H., 56 n. 
William of Orange, 23. 
Williams, William, 317. 
Wimot, David, 91, 170. 
Wilmot Proviso, 73, 76, 84, 
103, 105, 106, 119. 
Wilson, Henry, 130. 

Wilson, James F., 308 n. 
Wilson, John & Son, 410. 
Wilson, Michael, 145. 
Winchester, Virginia, 24. 
Winthrop, Robert, 90. 
Wisconsin, 102, 121, 133, 
135, 268, 368, 379, 391, 
395. 


Wise, Plenry A., 165 n. 
Woman's Journal, 428. 
Woman suffrage, 315, 319. 
Wood, Fernando, 257. 
Woodburn, James A., 413. 
Woods, C. J., 53, 56 n. 
Woods, W. L., 272. 
Woolman, John, 343. 
Worcester (Mass.), 111. 
Wordsworth, William, 70. 
World’s Columbian Exposi- 
, tion, 412. 

World War, 28 n. 

Worth, Daniel, 198, 200. 
Wright, Frances, 42. 
Wright, Joseph A., 138, 221, 
222 . 

Yankee, 287. 

Young’s History of Wayne 
County, 29 n., 35 n., 66 n. 

Zimmerman, Charles, 193. 




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